PLEASE NOTE: the auction/fundraiser in this post is open only to my work colleagues (and their friends, if they should happen to have any extremely wealthy friends…). Apologies to anyone else for any inconvenience in having to slog through a second Brouhaha post – although who wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see my fabulous goodies a second time, really?!

Hello all:

Well, it’s that time of year and I’ve been excavating the spare room and trying to adhere to our new Clean Desk policy at the office.

In this regard, I’ve come across some stuff I’ve made over the past couple of years that are not getting the use they so richly deserve. So, I thought I’d offer them to you, my biggest fans.

(At a price, of course – because nothing in life is free!)

So, welcome to the First Annual Brouhaha Spring Cleaning Auction/Fundraiser!!!

• Mother’s Day is right around the corner. Stuck for gift ideas? Doesn’t your mom deserve a one-of-a-kind handmade original which will be worth thousands one day? Huh? Huh?

• Any Jewish or Eastern Orthodox people on your gift list for Passover/Easter?

• Skip all those May 2-4 Weekend/Week/Month sales at the Bay and Sears. Your one-stop shop is right here!!!

• Oh, and let’s not forget Father’s Day coming up in June. It’s never too early…

And two thirds of the money will go to the New Outlook program – right here in the building! So you can feel good about giving on so many levels…

Here’s how it works!

• The auction starts today, Tuesday 15 April 2008. (And yes, I know it’s PayDay for most of us. There is a method to my madness.)

• Check out the items below. Most of the items (aside from #2, #3 and # ) are available in my office for viewing, so if you’re in the building, come on by!

• If one or more tickle your fancy, Email me at the work Email address or (if you happen to be in the building) phone me on ext. 5411 with your bid. Each item is numbered below for your convenience.

• Please note that I have put a minimum bid on some items. Those items are all originals, and I thought this fair.

• Each day, I will post such bids as I should get underneath each item. The bids will be anonymised, rest assured. So, keep checking back!

• Bids will close on St. George’s Day (a big Greek National Drinking Day, although sadly not this year because it’s during Holy Week): Wednesday 23 April 2008 at 5:00 p.m.

• All items will be delivered on Thursday 24 April or during the week of 28 April. I’m flexible regarding payment terms.

• What should you bid, you ask? Whatever your little heart desires – and whatever your conscience can live with considering that 2/3 of the money raised will go toward helping street youth at risk. The other 1/3 will go toward the support of the local artisan scene*!

* the Benevolent Association for Provision of Lace Yarn to KB

Oh, by the way, please do not feel any pressure because I’ve linked you to this site. I won’t be offended if you sniff don’t sob bid. Really, I won’t.

(In all seriousness, if you want to bid, great. If not, please don’t feel you’ve got to or anything silly like that… but do feel free to pass along the link and my Email addy to any friends you think like this sort of thing!)

Please also note that everything below has been very, very gently used. Some items, only once or twice.

And now… (drumroll, please…):

The fabulous works of Brouhaha!

(I’ve added links to the titles of some of the pieces – click on those if you want some info about “the making of…”!)

1. Homage to a Gerbera

Mosaic with broken teacups and saucers and a gerbera. 9″x9″ approx. Made in November 2007. Perfect for a little colour in the office, no?

Highest Bid to date: $50.00

2. Papillon Mini Birdbath

Mosaic with tile, stained glass and glass beads. Watersafe and good for outdoor use. Approximate size: 22″ high, 12″ water bowl diametre.

Birds love this! Great for your balcony or backyard.

And check out the pretty opal glass!

Made in Summer 2007.

Highest bid to date: $85.00

3. Crazy Melon Plate (vegan!)

Mosaic with mirror tile (clipped, NOT broken!), tile and glass beads on a glass base. Great for looking at on those days when you’re feeling a bit wonky. Made in Summer 2006.

Minimum bid: $40.00.

4. Crazy Paving Felted Bulletin Board

Repurposed sweater from Goodwill, felted and embroidered. Wouldn’t this be a funky bulletin board for the office or for home?! Huh? Huh? 24″ wide x 22″ deep, roughly. Made in Summer 2007.

Minimum bid: $30.00

5. Fuzzy Plaid Bag

Repurposed sweater from Goodwill, felted and sewn. Great for trips to the market – and reusable ad infinitum! Forget those ones they sell at the grocery store. It’s about the same size as those ones they’re selling at the LCBO, combining strength and lightness. Snap it up as someone who shall remain nameless already has their eye on it… Made in Summer 2006.

Minimum bid: $15.00

6. Spring Has Sprung! purse

Repurposed sweater from Goodwill, crochet edging and handle, felted and embroidered with funky button applique. You must know some fashion queen who’d like this one! The colours make me happy… small handbag size. Made in Spring 2007.

Minimum bid: $25.00.

7. Memories of Cage Au Lait – A moebius scarf

Hey, if it works for Galen Weston…!! The scarf is lighter in colour than shown in the photo, hence the name. It is knitted in the form of a Moebius strip… remember those from math class? Can be worn as a headdress or a scarf – very versatile. Knitted by me over the Atlantic in December 2007!!! 50% wool, 50% silk blend.

Minimum bid: $40.00 (that’s what the wool cost, plus three bucks for my labour. Not bad, eh?)

8. Silk Garden – Moebius scarf

Another Moebius scarf, like #7 above. Silk/wool blend. Knitted by me in jolly olde England! in December 2007. Silk/wool blend.

Minimum bid: $25.00 (that’s what the wool cost, plus three bucks for my labour. Not bad, eh?)

9. No Mirrors in My House!

Mirror retrieved from the trash (cut, not broken!), sea glass, glass beads, broken crockery (OPA!). The link above in the title shows better close-ups and perhaps a bit more than you want to know about the artisan’s thought process… don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Now, if I were a really deep and pretentious artiste-type person, I would tell you that the symbolism of this piece involves a deep sociocultural commentary on the fate of many young women who spend hours on end looking at themselves in department store mirrors, hating what they say, and feeling fractured and very blue as a result…

The link also explains the title. November 2007.

Highest Bid to date: $100.00

The following are not original patterns of mine. So, no minimum bid.

10. Santa Fe Felted Handbag

This is a smallish handbag – it can accommodate housekeys, a wallet and a pocket novel. Click on the photo to see the cool sun button!

11. Little Slip of a Thing Felted Handbag

Don’t you love the periwinkle and espresso colour combo? This bag, with an i-cord strap, is a smallish purse size but surprisingly capacious.

Highest bid to date: $20.00

12. French Market Felted Bag

On the shallow side but holds quite a bit. Good for trips to the market.

13. Periwinkle Bag

Great fun for an afternoon garden party. I think the right brooch or pin would work wonders – if I find it at the Goodwill before the end of the auction, I’ll throw it in. How about that!

14. Buttonhole Bag

This is the bag I’ve used the most, and some of you will probably recognize it. Very handy for schlepping stuff around – and funky!

Anyway, I hope you’ve all enjoyed viewing the Brouhaha Auction Gallery. Now, what are you waiting for…!! Get onto that Outlook and start bidding, already!!!

Thanks in advance… and happy day!

KB

I had a very traumatic experience this past Saturday. I’m sure any knitter who’s stopped by here can relate.

Imagine this: here I was, carrying merrily along on my Icarus Shawl. Knitting on autopilot. The dulcet tones of Chris Noth of Law and Order fame playing on the background were half tuned out by that grandiose gloaty voice in my head singing “You rawk. You are the knitting Lace Queen. This is so easy. You’re a star. Man, you kick knitting @$$. One day, everyone else will realise what you know to be true already: you rule the knitting world. Yarn Harlot??!? Who the hell is she anyway?”

And so on and so forth.

Until, that is, Little Ms Knitting Genius decided to stop and admire her creation, some 20 rows after the last time she had bothered to have a look at it. At first, all looked fabulous, as expected:

Until, all of a sudden, I spied with my little undeluded eye:

this.

(Now, I know that this photo does not point out the sheer horror of what I had done. I can’t explain why – the best I can think is that the vale of tears which ensued after seeing a HUGE GAPING HOLE CAUSED BY AN EYELET ROW IN THE WRONG $(#(*$&@(#*$&(# PLACE flowed over the camera lens. Suffice it to say that the little white blob in the lower left hand side of the photo is not supposed to be there.)

The little “you are Queen of the Knitting World voice” was almost immediately replaced by a huge booming thunderclap stating:

ENEMY THY NAME IS…

I mean, really. Look at Frogman himself, laughing at me in several iterations.

After screaming, effing and blinding for twenty minutes or so, I headed out to the balcony with the offending UFO in hand. The landscape looked like this:

…and the inevitable happened.

By this point I was clearly weakened by my little hissy fit, and so Icarus did not manage to clear the balcony (in retrospect, my vindication for having always been the last to be picked for softball in public school, I guess).

Luckily for Icarus, JJ the Wise soon came home from work. He immediately knew something was wrong as I was not parked in my usual position on the couch knitting. A walk on the estate (as he calls the 32 foot balcony, in his weird British Isles way) soon shed light.

He came back in, Icarus in hand, and said:

It didn’t quite sound like that, but you get the point.

After another 20 minutes or so, during which JJ explained to me the folly of blaming a puir wee Muppet for my screwups, reminded me that he had left this

out on the balcony for pitching practice the last time I had tried to sacrifice a recalcitrant UFO to the forest (“D’ye really think the raccoons can eat silk, hen?”) and exhorted me to take full responsibility for my mistake (“Look in the mirror, lassie, and see the world!”), I was finally able to stop whingeing and start thinking about solutions.

(And really, no one ever died ripping back a piece of knitting… did they?)

So I settled down to the task at hand. In penance for my bad behaviour, I’d like to share with you what I learned in the event that it might help others in future.

The Guide:

1. Make sure that you have all your frogging supplies gathered and close at hand before starting to rip.

These include:

(a) a knitting needle one or two sizes smaller than your working needle. In my sample, the needle to the right is the 3.0mm working needle. The needle to the left is the “pick-up” needle and is 2.5mm.

If you don’t happen to have a smaller knitting needle, find a small crochet hook. In fact, it’s helpful to have both at hand:

And if you don’t have a small crochet book, go out and buy one now. This cost … I don’t know … $3 or so and has been a UFOsaver too many times to count.

Oh, and don’t forget your stress release tools:
(Yes, that’s the soundtrack from Zorba the Greek in the background. I don’t have a turntable any more so can’t actually listen to it. It will be used in a future project though – stay tuned.)

2. Start to rip.

And yes, you will feel sad when you do this. (If you don’t, please drop me a line and tell me your secret.) There is little that looks more forlorn to me than all those vulnerable little stitches hanging open in the air.

Some pointers about ripping:

(a) Do it very, very slowly. This is because if the yarn sticks to itself at all, you will need to tug at it very gently and patiently every so often. Otherwise, you will end up having to rip out more rows than necessary when big huge eyelets start to appear below the row you are actually ripping, at the sticking points. Learn from my mistakes.

(and, by the way, can someone explain to me why silky smooth laceweight silk acts as though it has a fine coat of Krazyglue on it when you’re trying to rip it back?!?!)

(b) Save all of your stitch markers in a handy place. (I have not found “in between the chesterfield cushions” to be all that handy, really… but if it works for you, good – because that is usually where they end up. However, this position works better for me:

Aren’t they lovely? I like how the green ones match the knitting, actually. But I digress.)

(c) Make sure and stop every so often to wind the yarn that you have ripped. This is especially important with laceweight yarn, to avoid nasty fankles that lead to this:

“This”, by the way, is two balls of Handmaiden Lace Silk where once there was one. Sigh. (But on the upside, this finally motivated me to try the Russian Join technique for joining balls of yarn. Try it. It’s magic!)

(d) If you are ripping back lace, it is easier to pick up stitches on the right side of the work due to all those pesky little eyelets. Trust me on this one. This means that the last row you rip should be a wrong side row and that the yarn should end up at the end of a right side row. (Sorry if I’m belabouring the obvious. I’m probably stupider than you are.)

(e) Keep count of how many rows you are ripping back and, when you’ve finished, figure out what pattern row you are at. If it is lace or involves decreases or increases, it will be helpful to have a general sense of the pattern to avoid picking-up booboos.

3. Pick up your smaller needle and start picking up stitches, one by one – and SLOWLY.

Now, it will be helpful at this point if the work you have messed up is done in variegated yarn so that you can actually tell the difference between the yarn you are continuing to rip and the loose stitches. (Another reason to rejoice in the multicoloured world, in my opinion).

In this photo, the brown strand at the top is the yarn that I am pulling back, and the green loops are the loose stitches. If all goes well, this is the last row you will have to rip.

Pull gently on the strand of “working” yarn to release each stitch one by one if possible (if you’re dealing with YOs, however, note that two stitches will come loose at each decrease point) and pick up with your needle.

(The eagle eyes amongst you will note that I didn’t end up actually using the smaller needle after all. This is because I’m an idiot. But it was a good idea at the time, I thought.)

Oh – it’s a good idea to know where any yarnovers were in the original row, as these can be a bit tricky. This is where the crochet hook can come in handy – simply grab the little wee thread that will be sitting inside the hole, and put it onto the needle. It’s as easy as that!

Another reason for doing this S-L-O-W-L-Y: more often than you would like from time to time you will find that a stitch will unravel two down, especially if you are working with silk. This is easy to fix if you catch it right away… just grab the other end of your needle/other needle or your crochet hook, grab the offending strand and pull it through.

You will also save yourself some sanity if you don’t worry too much about how the stitch you’ve picked up sits or twists on the needle. Just get it on there. This is easy enough to figure out when you start knitting again, in my experience.

This is another photo further along. I’m feeling much happier by this point, although I don’t know if you can tell that or not.

And, 300 odd stitches later, success was mine!!

4. Doublecheck your reconstituted row to make sure there are still no loose stitches hanging.

You will be glad you took the time to do this, trust me. And it’s simple – just take a good hard look at your top row of knitting. Any stragglers or offenders should be obvious, like so:

See naughty little stitch no. 7 from the left!??!?! Bastard.

(Actually, I’m quite chuffed to report that I had no loose stitches hanging. I actually went back and did this one on purpose for the photo. Seriously. You see how I suffer for my art?!)

And this is how to go back and fix it.

(I confess, I was a tad stressed during this whole process. I’m sure you’ll note this from the state of my thumbnail.)

Oh – and you may find that your loose little bastard stitch is much further in than the one I recreated for you here. Fear not. All that you need to do in that event is secure it with a removable stitch marker or safety pin so that it doesn’t ravel down any further.

5. Start knitting your first new row.

You’re almost finished fixing your UFO now!! So, some tips to make sure your frogging experience finishes smoothly:

(a) Do this slowly. And count your stitches as you’re going along.

(b) Replace all your stitch markers at this point. This will help you ensure that your pattern is in order.

(c) Keep a look out for twisted stitches. It’s usually easy to tell when you’ve done this as your needle does not slide in as easily to the stitch as it usually would. If you find this, simply remove that stitch from the needle with your right hand needle, twist, and replace onto the left hand needle.

(d) Study the work as you’re going along to make sure everything looks OK and that there are no little pesky bastard loose stitches still hanging around.

And that’s it!! You’re back on track. Huzzah! Huzzah!

(er… sorry. I digress yet again. The “Beer” episode of Blackadder was on again yesterday. You know, the one where they all get plastered and carry on like fools and nearly all get executed by Queen Elizabeth I?!? A personal favourite.)

Back to our regularly scheduled programme now…

6. Go have a drink or a fatty snack, or even both. You’ve earned it!

And there you have it – a rather half-@$$ed guide to frogging success! I hope it’s somewhat helpful. No need to see red any longer, really…

(The art is by Maggie Barnes. Man, I wish I could paint!!! Sigh.)

As proof of the pudding, I offer you my latest photo of Icarus, approximately 45 rows after the frogging schmozzle:

I’m liking this knit more or less, although am getting rather bored with this pattern sequence. There’s either another 24 or another 46 rows to go, depending on how many pattern repeats I decide to go with.

And, stay tuned for a Brouhaha Design Feature. One hint… it involves this:

(And no, this is not a blurry photo of yarn – although, given the usual quality of photos on this blog, I certainly wouldn’t blame you for thinking so!)

Hey, that Kermit isn’t that evil looking after all:

Rather swish, eh?

My only remaining problem: I really feel like calling in sick and working on Icarus, but that would be a dangerous precedent to set, methinks. So, time to sign off and get out the door.

Happy Monday!

For those who were lucky enough not to go to high school in English Canada, and therefore were not forced to haven’t read “The Two Solitudes” by Hugh MacLennan, an explanation might be in order.

One reviewer, who obviously had a different view of this book than I, describes it as follows:

A landmark of nationalist fiction, Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes is the story of two races within one nation, each with its own legend and ideas of what a nation should be. In his vivid portrayals of human drama in prewar Quebec, MacLennan focuses on two individuals whose love increases the prejudices that surround them until they discover that “love consists in this, that two solitudes protect, and touch and greet each other.”[emphasis added]

The bolded part of the book is the only part I actually liked. And only for a selfish reason – it describes very well the relationship between myself and JJ.

How else to explain our usual outings to the grocery store?
No, we are not having a party. These are provisions for the two of us. Life can be very difficult, not to mention expensive, when living in a bicultural household… and never is this more apparent than at the biweekly expedition to Loblaws.

This is because JJ and I cannot agree on many food choices, necessitating multiple purchases for ongoing household harmony.

Some examples (and I’ll let you guess who chose what):

Why anyone wouldn’t choose olive oil over yucky, weird tasting butter is beyond me. (Oh, sorry – I said I was going to let you figure it out. Should have known that wouldn’t work out…) Next…

Stinky smoked fish and canned meat, or yummy pasta? Hmm. The choice seems clear to me… but others would beg to differ. Sigh.

Even when we agree on a particular food choice (which typically comes from somewhere radically different from either Greece or Scotland, I should note), we can’t get it together on the appropriate heat level… (what the hell is the matter with hot food anyway, I ask you?!?!? Sheesh!)

…not to mention that we fight over who gets to scarf down most of the naan.

But, happily, we do share some food choices in common. These typically involve the slaughter of little baby yarn giving creatures that run around going “bah bah”:

(And one point for me… JJ actually likes some Greek food, whereas I like no Scottish food whatsoever. Heh heh).

Another variant on a theme: the humble lamb shank.

(is that JJ I hear in the background saying “Dinna ye photograph them bloody lemons next to mah lamb shank and tatties. And whar’s me whiskey, lassie??” It’s MORNING, JJ – do try to control yerself, would ye?!?)

Oh, and let’s not forget the craving for processed pork products in common:

Damn that evil, evil Loblaws, by the way. How dare they put bacon on for $1.99 a pound? I have a mind to send them the bill for the new clothes I will need after eating all this bacon. Note, however, that I picked the healthy salt-reduced bacon…

Not to mention the even healthier smokey bacon potato chips. (And on that topic, may Loblaws be double damned AND blasted for putting chips on sale. I just can’t control myself, obviously!!!)

This, by the way, signals another difference between me and JJ on food choices. The above photo represents my notion of vegetarian cuisine (after all, it’s not real bacon flavour in those chips… is it?!?)

If I had my way, the vegetable crisper in the apartment would look like this:

JJ: It’s called a VEGETABLE crrrrrispah for a reason, ye know.

KB: Oh… and who tiefed those butter patties from work and stuck them in with my champagne, barbecue sauce and bacon, then?!

JJ: Ah, shurrup and gi’us a whisky.

So now, it looks like this:

Triple damn, blast and condemn to almightly hell the dastardly Loblaws for selling vegetables! I think that JJ just wants to keep reminding me that I am no longer, in fact, a bachelor. Sigh.

Just as well, really – because if I were still a bachelor I’d be pining over this guy and wanting to invite him home to cook for me – and he’s married:

This is Michael Smith, a.k.a. Chef at Home and Chef at Large. He had an idea on his program yesterday which I had to try immediately: Smashed Potatoes.

The recipe is simple: take two leftover baked potatoes (or if you, like me, live with a Scot and never have leftover tatties as a result, put two potatoes in the over for 1 hour at 375 degrees F. Oh, and prick them all over with a fork first. I learned about this the hard way once).

Next, press down on them with a potato masher (or, if you don’t have one, the bottom of a plate will do). Mikey says to do this until they are approximately double their diametre.

Garnish as desired. Mine, on the left, has olive oil, parmesan and Montreal steak spice. JJ’s has (yawn) butter and salt. Oh, and I snuck some pepper on it too. Heh heh.

Then bake at 500 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes.

Delicious! Guaranteed to promote harmony even in the most recalcitrant British Isles vs. Mediterrania debate.

(But just tell me that the one on the left doesn’t look tastier… I dare you. Um… oops… forget I said that.)

This recipe has the Brouhaha Seal of Approval for sure. You can cook for me any time, Michael!

So, anyway, another grocery store trip without incident – and we’re both happy campers now, until the next sortie to Loblaws, anyway.

Happy Sunday!

Today was one of my favourite days of the month… Magazine Shop Day. Left to my own devices, I would spend as much on magazines as I spend on yarn… and this, as those who know me have gathered, is no small feat.

However, this month, I did attempt to exercise some restraint, given the continued reminder of last month’s pile, mocking me every evening from my living room table:

However, as usual my generosity knows no bounds… so rest assured that the other denizens of the Brouhaha household were regaled with treats.

Three guesses who this lot is for, and the first two don’t count:

Gotta love these British tabloids, with words like “yobs” featuring every week in the headlines! JJ is off tomorrow, lucky wee bugger. This should just about see him through until I make it home from work, don’t you think?

And never let it be said, by the way, that I am not a permissive spouse. One of these mags features… a centrefold!!!

And I foresee yet another mail order session by JJ in future…

(See? In case ye thought ah made it up… they actually dae speak like tha’!!)

So, JJ’s all set for hours of amusement and entertainment. Ah’m so guid tae him, no?

Now for the rest of our little family… I know that every time I buy Toronto Life, that increasingly irritating chronicle of gentrification and excess in the Big City, I say that I will never, ever, ever spend my hard-earned pinko dollars on it again. However, Daisy “Bling” Brouhaha made a demand for it last evening, and I just can’t say no to Daisy.

At any rate, this issue should be good for a rant or two next week. For example, as you might well imagine I have some thoughts on the “Baby Invasion”. None of them, shall we say, constructive.

But I digress. For the intellectual in the house, I also brought in the Walrus. Generous of me, considering how frustrated I get when I can’t even get one clue in the cryptic crossword…damn and blast Fraser Simpson!!!

But hark… what’s this???

The answers!!! Don’t you just love the internet? And Quack, genius that he is, hasn’t yet cracked my computer password. Heh heh.

But, despite the pile, I couldn’t leave myself out, of course. So, while Quack figures out what exactly is ailing the Nation’s Capital…

…I’ll be tee-heeing at my version for dummies.

Oh, and of course I couldn’t pass up the requisite knitting pattern mag:
Not sure quite why I continue to buy this, but if the past few issues are any indication, at least I won’t add to my project queue…

I also picked up a copy of one of the local weekly leftie-ish entertainment mags:

The photo makes me feel rather lazy. I don’t even own a bike, which makes me a bad, bad Torontonian. Since I moved to Toronto, I’ve had one bike which lasted approximately 3 months before it was stolen right out of the entranceway of the building I lived in then – an old Victorian house with three flats. It had a wooden stairwell with thick banisters and I had locked the bike to that. The thief sawed through the bannister and took the bike, expensive Krypton lock and all.

(Don’t feel too sorry for me, though. I managed to get Stan the landlord to waive a month’s rent in exchange. Stan was an old Polish guy who was going through some problems at the time, and I took shameless advantage. One day, I’ll post the sorry story of my tenancy at 12 Maynard… it’s quite funny, actually).

Anyway, why the hell should I feel lazy? I think I should actually feel quite intelligent… if I were to write the Commuter Cyclist’s Handbook it would have one sentence only:

Don’t cycle to work in Toronto, unless you enjoy taking your life in your hands.

And I wonder why Now Magazine never publishes my submissions!!!

Happy Friday to all…!

Last evening, while sitting on the patio (!!!!!) at the pub, JJ had occasion to ask me “What the hell are ye doin’ lassie?”

Nothing all that interesting, I suspect… I had three loonies in my hand and was just fascinated at how they represented the various ages of the Queen:

From left to right: 1987, 1994, 2007.

My, but hasn’t she aged a lot in 20 years! Either that, or she looked extraordinarily young at 60…

So, because this wasn’t quite obsessive enough, I had to haul out the UK change collection from our holidays in December (JJ casting his eyes heavenward and tsk-ing severely at this point).

Here are the UK equivalent portraits from the same year (top).

Very curious. She aged faster in the UK then here. Then again, she lives there and I guess we don’t see her all that often in comparison…. Also, I noted that Canada and the UK coinage had identical portraits of her until…

I think she looks friendlier in our loonie, no?

But before you say “Speaking of loonies…”, there is a method to my madness. If I weren’t obsessing about the Queen’s image on our coinage and comparative studies with the “mother country”, I would be scheming about how to get my hands on this:

“This” being a kit for a pattern by Miriam Felton called “Mountain something or other” (that’s my name for it… too lazy (or scared) to look it up again. It’s available through Renaissance Dyeing. Just look at the colourways when you click on that past link and see why I’m frightened to go there!!!!

Not that I’m short of laceweight yarn, by any means. Au contraire. This is what Mr. Postman brought today to the office…

Whisper Merino lace yarn, in the Tupelo Honey colourway (1900 yards!!!)….

… and in Moroccan Nights (1000 yards). This colour in particular is very hard to photograph: think “Deep dark shades of inky blue with rich shades of raspberry swirled here and there.”

The description comes from Kim at the Woollen Rabbit in New Hampshire, US, who created the yarns as part of a kit with these lovely patterns by Susan Pandorf: Magic Carpet…

(magic indeed!) and Arabian Days Moroccan Nights:

One is essentially a smaller version of the other, with some modifications. I couldn’t decide so of course went for both of them. The larger one calls for 5,000 (!!!) beads as well….And so this is how approximately 100 loonies got spent.

I’m so tapped out now that I have to raid the UK collection to buy my coffee this morning:

(The coin on the right is my favourite ever coin – a commemorative coin for the 350th anniversary of the Johnson’s dictionary. I know. I’m a nerd.)

But all is not in vain. One day, I will become a world famous knitter and start a political knitting party… I will then become World Prime Minister and have my face on the coins like so:

(and I would venture to say that my elegant Greek profile on the coins will not be interfered with by the head you see beneath my chin… the talking head who was muttering “what in the hell is that lassie up tae now?” as this photo was taken…)

But until that point we are stuck with:

Liz.

Happy Wednesday!