Tag: sherwood

a lovely spring afternoon…

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…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.

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Sherwood and other forests

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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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tempting the Photo Gods

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Well, the other day I got bored at work had some free time. So, naturally, I decided to mess around with all the photos I published here the other day, using the free photo morphing program in Flickr.

Here are my favourites.

Hey, do you think that this is what acid rain causes? Hmm.

Now for a diptych (big word, eh!):

As you can tell, I really like that radioactive blue colour. And what about electric blue?

Pretty cool, eh?

However, I think I’ve pissed off the Photo Gods. Here is the only non-blurry photo I’ve managed to take of Sherwood thus far.

Now, when I’m working on this project, I can’t stop thinking about this guy:

…which inevitably leads me to thinking about this guy, Dennis Moore:

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Galloping through the sward
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
And his horse Concorde
He steals from the rich
And gives to the poor
Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore….

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Dum dum dum the night
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Dum de dum dum plight
He steals dum dum dum
And dum dum dum dee
Dennis dum, Dennis dee, dum dum dum.

(By the way, I do hope you didn’t click the link above, as this tune will probably be with you for the entire weekend. Yes, it’s one of those.)

I wonder where all these guys disappeared to who used to steal from the rich and give to the poor, anyway. They certainly didn’t end up in Parliament!!

On that happy note, let me bid you a fond farewell, gentle readers, and a happy weekend!

Regards,

Maid Marian

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a sneak preview…

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Well, I know I said I wouldn’t be back until Tuesday. Well, I lied. Couldn’t resist offering a sneak preview of my Icarus, hot off the needles!

Sadly, it’s raining, so the field trip I had planned with Icarus today to Casa Loma won’t work. Sigh. Will have to scheme about other photo op ideas…

And here are the very early days of Sherwood, my test knitting project:

Off to enjoy the rest of my long weekend do some tidying up now.

As you can see, we’ve been partying hard in the Brouhaha household this weekend…

Man, those duckies just can’t hold their drink!

Happy Monday!

Big Friday, redux

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I’m feeling lazy today…I’m taking a day off for religious observance. That’s right, folks – it’s Big Friday for all us Greekish types (see my post this past Good Friday if you want to know why this is so).

So, being the high holy day in the Orthodox calendar, I’m spending the whole day in church, right?

Yep. The Church of Icarus.

(Oh, what’s that? You don’t think that knitting is a real religion? Check out this recent blog post by fellow raveller Genuine: The Sacraments of Knitting: A Simple Tract. I was a skeptic too, but she persuaded me and I’m a lawyer and all – I don’t believe anything, really.)

Anyway, if that excuse doesn’t work, my back up excuse is that I need to finish Icarus ASAP so that I can start on a test-knitting project that I’m doing for Susan of Sunflower Designs! The project in question is called Sherwood:

So, of course I had to go out and buy some new yarn for it today at Amerigo:

Llama!

I know, I know – it’s not really my usual type of colour choices. Unlike, for example, the llama I already bought from Amerigo a month ago…

… or the Handmaiden Sea Silk from the stash that I had already designated for this project.

But I figured, what with the forest-like name and all, that I should go with a bit more natural hue. Makes sense, eh?

Sherwood also calls for 1300 beads to be strung on. Here they are:

I figured I’d have to get a bit of zip in with the beads, at any rate. That’s fair, right?

And hope I’m not jinxing Icarus.  I’ve just finished the 3rd chart and now have only 20 (very long) rows plus the edging left.  Decided to pin part of it out to shore myself up last evening:

JJ just said to me “Aren’t ye glad ye didnae throw it off the balcony, hen”.  So I am. And I will be praying this Big Friday – if only to the Goddess of Knitting to ward off the dreaded Frogman.

So, that’s how my Big Friday will pass. Oh, and am I going to observe the traditional Big Friday fast (i.e. no meat, no dairy, no oil, no food that tastes remotely edible)?

Am I hell! (as JJ is wont to say). In fact, I’ll be hooking up with some friends on the Danforth for a big fat Greek meal which will involve as much pork souvlaki, saganaki (fried cheese) and galactoboureko (custard phyllo dreamy treat) as I can manage to ingest.

Hey, we can’t all be saints, eh?

A happy Friday to you all!