Beware the Ides of... April!!!

On the day before the Ides proper, the postman was guid to me yet again...

Hours of amusement! Oh, and for those who are enslaved by that wicked taskmistress, Lace - you would do very, very well to order the book to the right, Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller. There are already, I'm reluctant to tell you, some drool marks on it just from me perusing it on the tram on the way home. It looks an excellent instructions/ideas manual for every level (including my level, Idiot).

I got both books from the Needle Arts Book Shop, a mail order service located right here in the fair T.O. Close by though it is, I was still amazed by the service offered by Marsha. I mailed a money order on Wednesday (I'm not allowed to have a credit card, perhaps for obvious reasons!). She Emailed me Friday afternoon saying that she had received my order, and the books were with me by Monday morning! (And this via evil Canada Post. She is very clearly some kind of magician.)

In addition to the books, she enclosed all sorts of little extras:

Book plates! Such a nice touch. I haven't had book plates since I was a kid, and demanded some which read "Kristina's Library. Take this and DIE" or something along these lines.

(I won't tell you how many years ago that was. Suffice it to say that it was around the same time I conned my long-suffering mother into buying me a "Keep on Truckin' " bumper sticker at the Kingston Fair (on the sole basis that it was holographic)... then, much to her horror, affixed it to my closet door. I tried to take it off a few years later with no success.)

And stitch markers... goody. Now I don't have to clean underneath the chesterfield cushions for another...oh, month or so at least! Thanks, Marsha!!

Anyway, what with all this lace inspiration, it was inevitable I hit a yarn shop, really. This time, it was - the only yarn shop in Toronto that sells... (drumroll please)...

Blue Moon Designs Yarn!

I really, really wish I'd never discovered this line of products. I mean, check out the name of the yarn!!

Not to mention the colourway - Motley Hue! It is a mohair/mulberry silk (whatever that might be - but sounds mighty guid to me!)/nylon blend and soft soft soft. 910 metres of lusciousness.

Oh, and then of course I felt guilty for cheating on the Handmaiden, so had to pick up some raspberry Sea Silk:

Sigh.

But as if these riches weren't enough, some stuff I'd ordered on interlibrary loan came in en masse:

Swoon. Colours galore. Kaffe rawks! Also, a lovely book by Candace Bathouth:

And before you ask, no, I'm not taking up needlepoint again any time in the near future. I just like all the pretty pictures as well.

However, I do actually know how to read... and I found some reading materials while at the library well suited to my Mensa-like brain:

Given my hatred of most things television these days, also couldn't resist picking up this one:

And I scored two DVDs of one of my all-time favourite TV shows!

"I am not a number, I am a free man." Gotta love Patrick McGoohan, although his judgement has arguably been impaired in past - Sean Connery has him to thank for the James Bond role, because he turned it down first. Seriously.

(Speaking of Bond James Bond:

That's me on the left. Really. I cut my hair just before putting up this blog.)

Phew. Where was I? Oh yeah.

And finally, I lucked out in the Treasures from Trash department when arriving at my building last evening.

A much needed addition to help organize the spare room. You can probably tell from the rest of the photo that it needs it. I thwarted Mario the superintendent

in this acquisition, by the way. He appeared quite miffed, really. Hey, whose fault is it that the person who's out of the building all day scores the treasures while the person who's purportedly working in and around the building every day loses out, I ask you?!

(Mario did, however, endear himself to me by engaging in a round of "Bash the capital L-landlord" for about 10 minutes. I think he thought I'd hand over the bookcase. Wrong... he should know better, really, as I'm both a tenant and a lawyer. However, I did give him a couple of smokes, so don't feel too sorry for him).

And... the sun even shone all day!! All in all, a better Monday than I've had in a long time.

Here's wishing you all an equally fabulous Tuesday!

well well well, what do we have HERE?!

Well, yesterday was the 30th which means only one thing in the House of Brouhaha: PayDay!!!

To top it off, I had received a rebate cheque the day before from Canada Post for yet another parcel they had lost - sigh. I think that a few months back my local postal station turned into a black hole. There are no doubt little gift packages with my chicken scratch on it floating around out there somewhere in space...

So - because I was meeting Bronwen on College Street, I made a little expedition to Lettuce Knit.

And thisis what the evil kind yarnie people had sitting right near the front door to the shop:


Schaefer Anne laceweight! Now, I've heard lots about this stuff but didn't think you could buy it on the shelf in Canada. And - what a luscious coral colour!

Then, stupidly, I decided to look on the Malabrigo shelf and saw this Tortuga shade:

"Tortuga", as far as I know, means "turtle". However, I think that this colour should be called Espeluznante (which means "spooky").

(I should note that Good Kristina made a brief appearance at around this point... so all is not lost. The first appearance in 2008, I should add. At least it's still January:

Good Kristina: STOP BUYING LACEWEIGHT LARN!!! You have plenty at home.

Evil Kristina: Not spooky yarn, I don't. And the spooky stuff is perfect for the Muir shawl.

Good Kristina: That's what you said about the beige stuff!



Evil Kristina: Well, I was wrong. It happens, surprising though that may be to you - Miss Perfect!!

Good Kristina: But you've already got all of this other Malabrigo at home, and you don't even know what you're going to make with it yet?


Evil Kristina: (with leisurely Mediterranean shrug) So?! (taking a drag on cigarette)

Good Kristina: How much lace can you make, anyway?!?

Evil Kristina: (blowing smoke in Good Kristina's face) Oh, I don't know. I thought I might try a super duper multicoloured version of Debbie New's lace coracle and use it to float you out into the middle of Lake Ontario:

Good Kristina: Oh, get over yourself!

Evil Kristina: Ah, shuddup already.

And that, as they say, was that.

I had also gone to Arton at lunchtime and bought all these beads:


And these ones (10 packs for $10!):

So, it was a shiny happy day for me! Not to mention my progress on my commuting project...

...and this book I scored at the library:


And no, this is not my passive-aggressive way of sharing any BIG NEWS with you. Rather, I'm planning a knitting design book and want ideas. There's this one, and the other one about "Don't knit your boyfriend a sweater until he has the ring". So, I'm thinking of a couple of companion volumes:

- Living in Sin - Stylin' Knits for Shackin' Chicks

- Divorce Knits - Reclaim your Style

- Say No To Booties - Fashions for the Childfree.

Do you think Interweave Press would go for it? Hmm.

Hey - I just learned that Handmaiden published pics of my Shazam scarf on her blog! She thinks it's majestic!! And she mentions that they have come out with Double Sea Silk. I'm in real trouble now, I can tell you... sigh.
Well, time to think about getting to the office. Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday!

how to put your rent money to better use

DISCLAIMER: Despite the rather irresponsible title, this post is not intended as legal advice. Nor is it intended to downplay the obligation under the law to pay rent - tenants, fail to do so at your own peril - the peril being an application to terminate your tenancy for non-payment of rent pursuant to s.59(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, S.O. 2006, CHAPTER 17 (hereinafter "RTA") or an application to terminate your tenancy for persistent late payment of the rent pursuant to RTA s.58(1)1. And yes, you can get evicted in winter. Really. Yawn... where was I? Oh, yes...

First up: the requisite ego shot of rather beautiful lacework (if I do say so myself) - my latest progress on the Secret of the Stole II KAL!

And now back to our regular programming. After my disheartening experience on Monday at the Landlord and Tenant Board as chronicled in yesterday's rant, I was so incensed by landLORDdom and my corresponding serfdom that I spent the portion of the February rent that JJ had given me at Knitomatic.

Well, not quite. But I did score some goodies, and even some bargains!

First up - some Misti Alpaca laceweight, which I just had to have after seeing Katty's beautiful version of the Muir Shawl on Ravelry.

Beige?!?!? you ask. What is rotten in the state of Brouhaha? I know... but it's not really beige. See...

It's got little orangey and yellowy bits in it. There was a real tossup, I may say, between this colour and a lovely bright purple. But I had to restrain myself from buying both when I saw this...

Allhemp3 fingering weight hemp - on sale! This is perfect for a little project I've been scheming about - maybe. It's a shame I can't draw or graph - this tends to impede the design planning somewhat. Oh well. Minor barriers, surely, and not insuperable... are they?

Oh - and don't you think these beads that I picked up last week go well with the Misti?

And check out the vintage buttons - $1.00 a pack! Now, this is my kind of dollar store...

Beige again? Is this a trend? ACK!!!

Oh - they also had some new (to me) and rather interesting sock yarn from SWTC called
TOFUtsies. What was interesting about it? Here were the contents:

50% Superwash Wool
25% SOYSILK brand fiber
22.5% Cotton
2.5% Chitin (made from shrimp and crab shells!)

Shrimp and crab shells?!? Should I take up spinning and tell JJ to stop throwing all of the leftover food over the balcony? (but then, the entire raccoon population of West Toronto would die of starvation. Bad karma. Forget it.) Anyway, good thing I don't knit socks and was not huge on the colourways, otherwise I suspect all of JJs rent money would have been spent!

And then I went home and did some work on this:

This is through Row 112 - only eight more to go to finish Clue 2! I had hoped to finish the rest this morning, but decided it is not a good idea to work on lace at 5:00 a.m. when I'm still half asleep - why do that when I can blat away on the blog and share all my half-baked wisdoms instead??

And now it's 7ish: here's what it looks like outside (minus the -15C wind which is making the trees sway wildly...)


AGH. Better head out to work. Sigh. And only yesterday it was above zero and I was out without a hat. Wah.

And on that note, I leave you on this Wednesday (Hump Day) with an unknown work by Dr. Seuss:

the knitting and spending (mis)adventures of Brouhaha

Well, last evening was all fun and games at the House of Brouhaha, I must tell you. First off, I started to swatch the Secret of the Stole II mystery project.

The swatch called for was meant to measure approximately 7" x 5.5". Here's my first attempt, using 3.25mm needles:


Why did I stop part way through? Because I'm a lazy@ss slacker Because, with my usual stunning attention to detail, it took me approximately 10 rows to notice a big big boo-boo. This dayglo overexposed alien photo will probably show it better. The background of the pattern is meant to be all stockinette.
See what I did wrong? Sigh. How did I manage to skip out one of the "easy" (non-YO) rows that I look so forward to?

Perhaps it was my yiayia (grandmother) putting a jinx on me for having taught myself to knit despite her best efforts against this endeavour:

(This is the engagement photo of my yiayia and papou on my father's side. My yiayia lived with us for a year or so way back when and did beautiful knitting and lacework. I asked her to teach me how and she refused, saying that this was a pastime only for uneducated people and that I should focus on my studies instead. I was resentful of this at the time and went ahead and taught myself to knit - although in later years I got her point and found it rather sad. This photo now hangs in my office as a reminder of my origins - and also because I think yiayia would be proud that her photo is hanging in a lawyer's office!)

Anyway, I didn't like the tightness of the fabric on that one, so did another swatch with 3.5mm needles.

My (lack of) patience with swatching, as you will note, is truly astounding. I managed to get through about 10 rows before packing it in... to work on something a tad simpler - the Gathered Pullover by Hana Jason:

This is my progress on the front/back of the sweater, knitted in the round. It is going very quickly. I've also made quite some progress on the sleeves, thanks to the increasingly slow service offered by the TTC:

These remind me of Santa Smurf hats at present. They were actually supposed to be knitted in the round on DPNs but I have found the experience of working with those very traumatic and avoid it at all costs.

And - here is the cable panel detail (halfway through the panel)!
I've done this without a cable needle! It's like magic!

In other news: earlier in the day I popped up to . I was just looking for a book [ED: come off it! If you want to buy a book, go to the bookstore, not the yarn store. Do you really thing you're kidding anyone?!?]

Anyway, the book I was looking for, alas, was not in stock. However, just as I was heading out the door, the following yarn leapt into my hands called out my name caught my eye.


So, despite the fact that I have six other skeins of Alchemy Silken Straw in the stash, I just had to snap this up. Can you blame me? The name of the colour is "Clio's Fancy"! I think I'll use it to make a short sleeved top along the lines of the Oriel Lace Blouse but with a different stitch pattern (this pattern, by the way, is why I bought the other Alchemy in the first place. Now I find the stitch pattern a tad too femmy for my tastes... so, we'll see.

(An aside: I don't know why I've become completely addicted to lace knitting - or at least the concept of it. So much so, in fact, that I joined up for aYear of Lace 2008 club yesterday. Just what I needed - more laceweight yarn! 6.9 km of Handmaiden products just aren't enough... but there is at least one pattern by Sivia Harding - the creator of the River Rock Scarf and one of my big heroes. Anyway, it beats the Fruit of the Month Club! And - I'm shopping Canadian (the shop is in Calgary...).

[ED: Enough with the rationalisations!] By the way, JJ didn't even ask me what I wanted to use his credit card for, unusually. I think he simply doesn't want to know about any more yarn coming into the house. Puir wee JJ!

Anyway, so today is a new day:


and Asteriz et al are fleeing from the oppressors! I live with one (at least, he keeps insisting he is Viking in heritage, as opposed to Irish, which is closer to the truth, methinks) so Asterix has a point when he says "Those Vikings are crazy!"

This morning on the way to work I rather stupidly walked by the John Fluevog shop.



I've been coveting these ones for months, and now they're on sale!!! They had better have them left in my size...and aren't these ones cute?


Hmm. Where is that JJs credit card when I need it?!?

And - I wonder what he'd think if I came home with this fancy chandelier this evening?


At $1,100.00, I don't think I'll chance it.

Happy Friday to all!

more shameless consumerism

I know, I know - this is the second post today. And I still have another five or six hours of "real" work to get done in the next day and a half, together with at least six loads of laundry, packing for a three week trip and trying desperately to finish the Tilted Duster.

However, you'll soon see why I couldn't wait until tomorrow to post.

I headed out into the blustery storm weather to get last minute errands done. To cheer myself up from standing in line at three banks and the drugstore and having trudged 20 blocks in the snow, I went and got a haircut:

A bit shorter than I had thought it would turn out - but hey. At least I won't suffer hathead for the rest of the winter. "A la garcon", as they call it in "the Greece" (why does every other language feel the need to bastardize French expressions? Hmm...).

I must say, however, that I am shocked at the amount of grey (which doesn't show up too well in the photo, most of it being in weird clumps at the back). Why couldn't I have that nice elegant salt-and-pepper look?!?

So, this necessitated another trip to the Shoppers to pick up some of this:

Pretty bold, eh? I was going to rush to dye it before JJ gets home from work (puir wee JJ, working for 12 hours on a Saturday!), but I figured he'd get enough of a shock with the crop job. He won't be best pleased - although I don't really think he should complain, as my hair was even shorter when I met him five years ago and that look worked just fine for him, apparently...).

Anyway, I still needed cheering up, so I headed to Knitomatic - hey, after all the yarn shopping this week already I felt I owed Haley a visit as well.

And here's what I saw when I first got into the door:

Noro Silk Garden!!

(I don't know what's gotten into me. Until this week, I haven't even thought about Noro since I made this hat with Kureyon a couple of years back!

My first ever crochet job, by the way. I then managed to promptly forget all I learned. Sigh. Anyway, about the Noro - let's just say that Cat Bordhi has a lot to answer for!
It's her fault that I thought about Noro again. I take no responsibility for my actions.)

But, Cat Bordhi didn't cause me to buy this:

Rumplesilkskin, by Fleece Artist. (It is actually called "Rumplestilskin" like the guy who slept for 20 years - or was that another guy? I forget! - but I like my name better).

But really, could you have passed up this colour?!
Ahh....reminds me of the seaside in Greece. A necessary antidote for the December foulness that is the Canadian winter, in my view.

(Where on earth did Good Kristina get to? I wonder if she gave up and left early for the vacation???)

On my way to meet B. for a lovely falafel lunch, I picked up something for dinner at the Bathurst subway station:

... and some after-dinner mints.

I also managed to lose my gloves when I was out. Luckily I have another three pairs of fuschia gloves! And, on the upside, being gloveless enabled me to knit while waiting 20 minutes for the $#$@#$@$ Bathurst bus. I should note that, although I am a fearless Outlaw Knitter, I do not recommend knitting outside when it is -8 C ("feels like -15 C!!!!" Thanks, Weather Network! And for my friends in the US, this is "17.6 F feels like 5 F") and snowing. But at least I got another repeat done on the Tilted Duster!

Unfortunately, when JJ gets home I have to make another foray into the cold - heading to the dreaded Forest Hill Loblaws to pick up dry cleaning, buy fudge and hit the LCBO. I would love to stay in and knit - but they're calling for a huge storm tomorrow and I'm not big on shovelling myself out of the parking garage... wish me luck!)