The changing of the blog

Today was my last day at work until Spring, and you know what that means, doncha? Yep, Dance Through, Laughing is now on vacation.
For the next few months I'll be over at

Mexican Madness

I hope to see you there.



Thanks for stopping by.

U.S. election

I can't offer an opinion on the U.S. election results because I haven't checked with Rick Mercer yet to know where I stand :-) , but my American friends have wildly differing points of view.

The right-of-center camp says:




While the left leaners say:




There were no in-between-ers. ¡Muy interesante!

Thanks for stopping by.

More felted slippers

I wanted to try the Patons Classic wool because it's slightly cheaper than the Cascade 220, can be purchased at my local Michael's, and doesn't need to be rolled into a ball. I also wanted to try making slippers in 2 colours, just to see what they look like.
Michael's didn't have a huge colour selection in stock, but I was feeling quite lazy, so instead of going to another yarn supplier, I took what they had.
Charcoal and magenta. Well. I wasn't expecting the 2-toned experiment to be a success anyway, so why not?
The soles of the slippers are knit using 3 strands held together. This makes the bottoms nice and cushy and also good & sturdy, but it was a pain to make 3 separate balls of wool before I could get started. I found a You Tube video to show me how to do something called Navajo knitting. Using this technique you can work with three strands of wool at one time without having to wind 3 separate balls of wool. Nothing short of brilliant! And easy too! For those inquiring minds that need to know.

Navajo Knitting

So, here are the worms, knitted up and ready to be seamed.




And the finished felted slippers.




I would have to call the 2-tone experiment a rousing success!




They turned out fuzzier than the other pair and at first I didn't really like that, but they're growing on me.
Oh, and I love these buttons! I think I'm developing a button fetish...and to think that I got rid of a whole biscuit tin full of them a few years ago...Aaarghhh!




Next up is a crocheted (no sew!) pair.

Felted Ballet Slippers Part 2

The knitting part was easy. I managed to complete all of the pieces with a minimum of ripping out. But seriously, does this look like a pair of shoes to you?




After blocking. No, I'm still not getting any kind of shoe vibe here.




Sewing the pieces together was painfully tedious. The yellow string is so I know which is the left foot. Hey, at least they sorta look like slippers now...




Um, slippers for a giant that is. They're just a smidge large.




I've owned this laundry bag for delicates for years, I might have even used it once. Finally found it useful.




Are you ready? You won't believe your eyes. A little bit of magic happened in the washing machine...

Ta da!!!




Okay, so they're still soaking wet (and probably will be for days), and the tabs and buttons are just balanced on top for now, (they get sewed on when they're dry), but HELLO, they're done! and they turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. This picture is even somewhat close to the right colour.



And the fit? Perfect!



:) :) :)

Felted Ballet Slippers Part 1

Sunday morning at the crack of noon, I was at Gina Brown's waiting for them to open so I could buy supplies to make the felted slippers in the previous post. I was in the store for more than half an hour before I even got around to looking for what I went there to buy. Ooh, aah, I'm like a kid in a candy store when I'm in a yarn shop. Just look at all this wonderful yarn! (I didn't have time to focus properly because I was trying to be sneaky)




I finally got down to business and picked out some beautiful cranberry- coloured wool, some gorgeous matching buttons and new needles, because I don't own any as large as what the pattern calls for. When I got to the counter, I asked for clarification on the needle sizes and the nice lady advised that I had the wrong size, and also the wrong kind of wool and pointed me in the right direction. Of course the right section didn't contain any cranberry wool, so I had to change the plan. I chose some beautiful turquoisey/teal instead. Sadly, there were no matching buttons. I'm not sure why I can't get a photo with a true colour in the blue green range, but I've tried 3 different cameras, and the results are all the same. Trust me, this is much brighter than shown. This one was taken outside (in a snow bank!) in an effort to get natural light. Still not good. I've given up as you'll see by the wide range of colours in the rest of the photos.




I have never bought wool in a skein like this before, and I wasn't sure how to attack it. Again, the nice lady was very helpful. She showed me how to unfold it, and how to find the end, and explained that I could loop it around a kitchen chair while rolling it into a ball. Then, I guess because it's reasonable to assume that someone who doesn't know how to unfold a hank of wool also doesn't know how to roll wool into a ball, she demonstrated that also. Really!
I rushed home with my rather expensive bag of goodies and got right to work. (20 bucks for the needles! Yes, bamboo are nicer to work with than metal, but sheesh!)
The grey chair is exactly the right size to hold the (bright blue) wool.




I guess I should've paid more attention during the ball winding demo, I ended up in a (royal blue) knot.




Cast on, work 3 rows, rip it out. Cast on again, work 8 rows, rip it out. Cast on yet again, work 39 rows, rip it out...
Okay, so maybe I should SLOW THE HELL DOWN and read the pattern in its entirety before galloping ahead. Yes, good idea.
Cast on, managed to work all 47 rows without messing up, and now have the first little (green) piece completed. Only 7 more to go...
Um, does this look like a shoe to you?

Knitting

Okay, this little tea cosy was just to get me knitting again. A warm-up, so to speak.




I'm not a particularly confident knitter, so I needed a quick, easy project to get me motivated and in the hang of reading patterns again.
This went relatively quickly. Except for that damned line 14 which I knit and unknit no less than 3 times! Grrrrrrr! My fault, not the pattern.

I recently joined Ravelry.com. (My user name is Shantaz. If you're a member, look for me). It's an amazing resource for all kinds of fiber arts. Lots of free patterns, and lots of pictures of completed projects, so you can see how things turn out when produced by other people. (As opposed to the perfect photos on the patterns) Different colours, different types of yarn, added personal touches, and lots of helpful comments.
There's a library to store patterns and a project log to keep track of what type of yarn was used, the needle or hook size, and any other notes you want to make. You can also add photos of your work in progress, the finished products, or your dog, or whatever. It appears to be unlimited.
These little felted slippers are the reason that I joined Ravelry in the first place. Aren't they cute?




This pattern wasn't free, but could be downloaded at a nominal cost through Ravelry. I scoured the photo gallery of slippers completed using it.




TL: Amongthetrees, TR:OCD
BL: Deborahanne, BR: Heidijoh




TL: Sheilaw, TR: Traceynicole
BL: Ginaknits, BR: Lindaac

(Love the buttons on the green ones!). Over 6000 variations, and most of the knitters said that the pattern was easy to follow, and that they were happy with the results. Alrighty then, let's give them a go. Just waiting for Gina Brown's (yarn store) to open.

Oh, I've never felted anything before (not intentionally at least), so even if I manage to do a good job knitting, there's still plenty of opportunity to mess them up during that process :)

Frogging

Frogging is a knitting term that means ripping out your work and re-using the yarn for something else.
So, fingerless mittens. What a concept eh? The thing is, I'm always cold at work, but I still need to be able to type. I keep an old pair of gloves that have the fingers cut off in my desk drawer, but I wanted something a little more customized. Something a little more colourful. (The cut-offs are black). Something home-made.
These fingerless mittens have been showing up all over Pinterest lately, so I thought I would give them a try.




I rummaged through my yarn stash and came up with this nice, soft, variegated stuff left over from last years hat-scarf-mittens knitting binge. Remember that?




They, nay, IT knit up pretty fast. I was amazed that I could finish a glove (well, most of a glove) in just a few hours. There's just one little problem - I hate it! Seems I don't know how to measure, and the finished product is way longer than I wanted it to be. I would prefer it to start at my wrist, not half way up my arm. And it's just too bulky.



I could roll up the cuff, but seeing as it's too bulky to start with, that seems like a bad idea.




There's really only one solution. To the frog pond with it!




Hmmm, all those photos and all very different colours. The one with Taz is closest to the true colour.

Fastest Afghan Ever

I saw this blanket hanging over the couch when we went to my sister's for Thanksgiving dinner, and I loved it! I borrowed the pattern from her, and went shopping for yarn the next afternoon.
The pattern is called Savory Salsa (U.S. spelling) Lesley made hers in a bright white with vibrant red, yellow, and orange stripes - very spicy salsa-ish. I decided that a creamy colour would look better on our cream coloured couch, so my stripes had to be more muted also; I went with mustard, pumpkin, and claret.




They are perfect in our living room.




It took me awhile to get the hang of the pattern, but once I figured it out, it just flew together. Yay, my kind of project! I kind of got lost on the last couple of lines of the pattern, so I had to improvise, but it turned out okay anyway.
I've already started on my second version. Same creamy main colour, but with royal blue, teal, and turquoise stripes for the house in Mexico.




It was supposed to be my winter project, but if it goes together as quickly as the first one, it'll be going down completed.

Another awesome day

Another beautiful fall day. We know this can't last much longer, so we headed out on another adventure.
We consulted the book...




...and decided on Whiskey Lake, kind of south and west of Turner Valley
Cool road to get there; too bad about the dirty windshield.




The book said to follow the old logging road, so we did. Kind of surprised to see this rig coming at us, though.








This is Gibraltar Mountain




The book is a great resource for ideas, and it has all kinds of interesting information about the history, flora and fauna of the regions, but the maps and trail descriptions leave a bit to be desired. Even Map Guy was confused, and we ended up missing the turn-off for the lake. We saw a path that we thought might be it, but it wasn't marked, and it didn't correspond to the map, so we kept going instead. After walking 3 kms in a straight line on what was supposed to be a 3.5 km loop, we turned around and headed back to the missed turn- off. It still didn't make sense according to the map, but what the heck.
We had seen evidence of past bear activity along the trail, but weren't too worried because who knows how old these claw scratches are?




However, when we started to notice these very fresh looking tracks...




...and we weren't convinced that we were on the right trail anyway, we opted to abort the mission, and head back down the way we came.
I was disappointed not to see the lake, but there was plenty of other spectacular scenery to make up for it.












We stopped along the way to take another short walk to check out Sheep River Falls.
If you zoom in, you'll see a couple sitting on the rocks. We waited until they moved on, then we took their place. Nice!








Who was this bench designed for? I would've needed a stepladder to get onto it, Dan's legs are dangling about a foot off the ground.




So, even though we didn't see what we set out to see, it was still a great day to be alive and outdoors.
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Autumn walks

Best autumn evah! We've had some wonderful walks in the crunching leaves.




This is Southland park. We don't get there very often, but for a change of scenery, we strolled through Carburn park and crossed the bridge to the off-leash park.




It was a beautiful day - warm enough for a dip in the river.












Our perfect autumn was rudely interrupted by a blast of winter, but only for one day. This is the view from my desk at work. Brrrr.




And we're back to Indian Summer...
We've discovered a hidden gem just off Beddington Trail. We used to wander along the bike paths down by Nose Creek there, but that can be a bit busy. Dan works in this area quite often, so he's found a way to get to the trails beyond the bike traffic. We can wander for hours here and only occasionally run into other dog walkers.








There's a little creek about as wide as a large dog.




Yep, just the right size for a little cool down.




Pretty views out over the valley.




We crossed over to the bike path to soak up some sunshine on their bench.




Yesterday was another amazing day, so we headed out to Bragg Creek. One of my Flickr friends recently posted some photos from Beaver Flats and I wanted to see it. Weird - we've seen beaver ponds in Argentina, but not in Canada.
There are a lot of photos, so make yourself comfy.
This is the biggest of the beaver ponds.




























A hot dog.




A cool dude.




A beaver lodge.
























And the road home. Man we live in a beautiful place!




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