FO! And a Book Critique.

I just read through some of my past posts and realized that I didn’t finish what happened on my BC vacation…. I’ll do that later, there wasn’t really all that much but I will get to it.

Today however I bring you the promised FO! This is a gift for a friend of mine who came to me last year and asked if I would help him reach geek level 5. It is a Tom Baker Dr. Who Scarf!

(as always, click the pictures to see bigger)

This scarf is LONG! I’m 5′5″ and it’s wrapped once around my neck loosely. It’s probably about 11-12 feet long all told.

The specs for this:

Pattern: Season 13 (first) Scarf from The History of Tom Baker’s Scarves

Yarn: Paton’s Classic Wool Merino

Needles: 4mm straights

Started: February 2007

Finished: October 2007

Thoughts: This scarf felt like it was never ending. At times it was quite fun, I’d finish a colour section and start the next, realize it was only 8 rows and try to get to the next section. It became a bit of a race with myself. However, it was also completely in Garter Stitch and made for very boring knitting after a while. Especially when I interrupted it with the Mystery Stole. Going from interesting lace back to garter stitch was hard. The pattern is sort of interesting though, in that it just gives you the colours you need, then lists which colour comes next and how many rows to do. It was fairly simple to follow.

That is until I skipped a line of the pattern and forgot about 10 colour sections. I ripped it out, cursing all the while, and added in the colours I missed. Looking back on it now, I realize that I could have just done some surgery on it, leaving the sections I’d completed to the side (cutting them off) knitting the ones I’d forgotten, then grafting the section back on. But I didn’t think about that until after I’d ripped it all.

My friend should be careful, because after that lovely picture up top, the garter stitch monster decided it wanted it’s revenge on me for taking so long.

But I beat it into submission and snapped a couple of pictures to warn you of any impending doom you will have if you make this scarf.

 

Sobering isn’t it.

On the plus side, I have at least one full ball of each colour left over to figure out what to do with. I’m pondering a colour work sweater but I’m not sure yet. We’ll see. Any ideas? There are 7 colours, I would probably have to do this sweater in the round to make sure I had enough, but I might be able to split the balls.

Book Critique!

Recently I went out and bought the book Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair  by Crazy Aunt Purl. This was a book that I was really looking forward to. I’d been reading her blog for about 6 months and had almost fallen off my chair laughing through most of it.

When the book finally came out, my local book store didn’t get it in stock for a month or so. When I finally found it, after reading great things being said about it, I snatched it up and bought it before the words “can’t afford it” could go through my head.

I was reading it in the car on the way home (my fiance was driving) and pretty well devoured it over the next few days.

This book is fantastic. It had me laughing, crying, agreeing, and emphasizing. I’m only 25, not married and never been through a divorce as one of the married people. I have however been a child involved in 2 divorces, one involving many acts of adultery and abuse, and do know how trying it can be on a person and a family.

This book is not a tale of woe, it is not a pity party or a “he was mean to me so I wrote this book”. This is a history of a woman caught in a tough time and surviving it. Finding strength in herself and moving forward. Plus, it’s got knitting included.

Totally my kind of book.

Oh and Laurie, if you’re reading this, you may say you decided to “not bring back the leg warmer trend of  1987″ but looking around the stores… you LIED!!

Till next time!

Saffity’s (Mis)Adventures in Cooking

So, in the nature of Odds and Sods, today I will tell you about what happened in the kitchen today.

Should you speak to my family they will tell you that I’m not exactly the best chef. I have a very good pallet, I even startled a Maitre D’ in a New York Italian restaurant by listing off every spice in a bruschetta that my friend and I were eating. This is thanks to my brother only being allowed to cook eggs in the microwave and testing out different spices in them to make them more interesting (of course he never ate the eggs, I was the test subject), but I digress. This isn’t to say that I can’t cook anything.

I have the normal college student meals of Kraft Dinner, rice, udon or ramen, and chicken noodle soup. But I have some home made recipes as well. My first college roommate actually declared my Tuna Fish Casserole as the only edible version she’d tried. My Spaghetti sauce is a favourite among the boys who are friends with my fiance (so long as I don’t dump half of a bag of rosemary in it).

The best complimen tho came indirectly from my brother. I had made my version of Shepherd’s Pie for dinner (my fiance claims it’s not Shepherd’s Pie due to the inclusion of Tomato Sauce and Carrots rather than gravy and corn), and while eating it, I mentioned that there were 3 more dishes of it in the freezer should my brother want to cook them up when his friends came over. My brother looked me straight in the eyes and stated “why would I want to waste it on them!”

However, up until today, the biggest mishap I had had was causing the microwave to pop when I’d forgotten to take the bottom off of a frozen orange juice container, which all things considered, wasn’t really that bad.

Today tho, I decided to make a most fantastic dinner of Freezer Isle Shepherd’s Pie (it’s so hard pulling it out of the freezer and putting it in the oven for the specified time). So I set the oven to preheat and went in the back room to finish weaving the ends in on an FO I will show you all soon. Suddenly, my brain picks up that something doesn’t smell right.

I head out towards the kitchen and OH SHIT! Realize that the living room is full of smoke. Dashing into the kitchen, I see that the oven is in flames! I stress for a second, then turn around and grab the fire extinguisher. I read the label and get the extinguisher ready and reach out to open the oven door.

This is when numerous scenes from the movie Backdraft entered my mind. I panicked for a moment. To open the door and chance flames doubling in size yet having access with the extinguisher, or to leave the door closed and hope it burns itself out. I waited for 3 more minutes and when the flames did not diminish, I tested the fire extinguisher, then slammed the door open.

The flames increased slightly with the influx of air, but then I doused it with the extinguisher.

The entire apartment was filled from ceiling to about counter level with smoke, I had to crawl to the patio door to get it open and step out. I worried that the neighbours might call the fire department with the amount of smoke billowing out of the windows. After about 5 minutes of catching my breath, I heard a sound that made me realize that had this been a real threat, we would be in deep trouble.

Only at this point had the smoke detector in our apartment gone off. All told from the time I discovered the fire (and had the living room filled with smoke) to the time that the detector went off was a good 10-12 minutes. Had this not been a contained fire, that was sufficient time for the fire to spread and cause serious damage.

After I got most of the smoke out of the apartment I finally went to check on the oven. The cause of this fire was actually the fact that we’d hidden some dishes in there the last time we’d had company over. Included in these dishes was at least one plastic container. The container had melted and then lit on fire. After seeing this, I was very glad that I grabbed the fire extinguisher and not a jug of water.

My lesson from this is to always ALWAYS check the oven prior to turning it on. This time I was lucky, but it could have been a lot worse.

Till next time (with an FO!!!)

Very quick update

So, I know I’ve been HORRIBLE to you, leaving you with the August vacation for the last month. I have been suitably whapped by the Imported Italian from that trip for not updating.

Before I go any further, check out Quirky Nomads new podcast!! I’m a guest voice! Hello anyone who’s come here from Sage’s site.

This month has had a fair amount happen in it,  and I will post a whole bunch of pictures, but sadly, you will be without them for now.

I joined the KW Knitters Guild (hello discounts and cool speakers!) and got to hear Debbie New give her speech. In fact, I showed my Mystery Stole to the guild, and Debbie came up and chatted to me about the beading I’d done. She knew they were plastic beads right away, and gave me some tips for the next version of the shawl I’m making for me.

I’ve got a new job that I’m starting (hence my blog silence) however it’s just another waitressing job. Still hoping on an office job of some sort, need to put the old Diploma to work.

On October 12, I reached my quarter century… yup, I’m now 25 years old, and with the fact that I threw my back out yesterday, I’m feeling it…. My mom says that my warranty is up and now everything on me is going to break.

I’ve been knitting, but mainly on big projects (Like the 10 foot Dr. Who scarf) and on projects for other people (not as much fun as a new sweater for me). I’ll hopefully have some pictures of those for you soon enough. Just as soon as I charge the batteries for the camera.

I think that’s it for now, though I’ve probably forgotten something.

Till next time!