First of all I wanted to say I swear I posted here this month!! I guess that I closed the window before actually hitting the post button thinking I had already finished posting it. Shows you how much sleep we get here at GDB's San Rafael campus! Lol, I'm lucky if I manage five hours sleep :-(

In knitting news, I was able to hit a yarn shop here called Dharma and I'll probably update with mystash enhancements a few days after I get home. Also, I am almost finished the second Horcrux sock all I need to do is kitchener stitch the toe. I have been doing more frogging than knitting but that's alright it's the process and the finished object is a bonus! Well I hear the dinner bell being played so I need to run. I'm still alive and being keep really busy at guide dog school. After dinner it's yoga and then some packing before bed. Take care everyone!

Wish there was more time in the day...

So I'm here in San Rafael working really hard in Guide Dog School. I arrived on the 22nd and I got my beautiful Maylee on the 25th. It was here birthday yesterday, she is now 2 and showing me that she is an adolescent! It's only Friday and I can't believe how far we have come!! There have been ups and downs already and there will many more to come during our training here, but we will pull through. Her saliva is giving me hives, so I am conditioning her not to lick me. Trust me this training hurts both of us a little because I love her licking me and she absolutely enjoys doing so.

In knitting news, I haven't had time to knit since the airplane. My second Horcrux sock is calling me but I really haven't had time to get to it. I'm hoping soon I'll be able to pull it out and work on a few stitches. I wonder if they won't mind if I knitted in lectures...

Anyhoo, I am on a time limit because I want to get to bed early. I just want everyone to know that I am alive and we are both doing great If you want to see a pic of my guide dog, Maylee and I, check out my guide dog school lj (here) I try to update it at least every few days; however things great really crazy busy here and sometimes there isn't time to get everything that you need to get down in the time that you have. If anyone has a time winder like Hermione in HP does, please get ahold of me because I really, really need one desperately.

Leaving on a jet plane

So I'm getting ready for my flight tomorrow because I'm off to guide dog handler school! I have packed some little projects with me and most of them are socks!! Right now I'm working on the second worsted weight Horcrux sock as well as a fingerweight one in Panda Cotton. I love how soft the Panda Cotton is, but don't use metal dpns or metal circs with it because the yarn does like to split. I haven't tried using Pony Pearls with them yet but I'm finding my crystal place bamboo dpns are handling with yarn well.

So I have some FO to share it's been finished for a while and I haven't blocked it yet but I've finished my modified mini clapotis. It took less than 1 1/2 balls of SWTC Phoenix in Napa Valley. At first I used Kpixie's free pattern for the mini clapotis pattern, but I ended up visiting the lovely frog pond because it was way too small. I wrote the mods I did down, but I don't have access to them at the moment so if you are interested let me know and I'll post them when I get back from guide dog school.

Scaring away valuable customers and why I love online yarn stores for certain stash enhancements

So I'm on the slow road to recovery from this cold. It's hit me hard, but at least I don't have to feel guilty of not getting anything done around my house because I'm knitting like a coder on a major deadline. I am orking on my modification on the mini clapotis pattern that can be found a kpixie. I have made it a bit wider and will be making it much longer, so it will be the perfect small wrap/scarf for windy San Fransisco. Due to my other projects involving either small needles/hooks or complicated patterns I have put them on hold till I have fully recovered from this cold of dOOm.

I didn't make it to the spring cleaning de-stash swap yesterday, so I'll have to find another way to destash the yarn that I can't use or wait till the next yarn swap. *sigh*

I ended up checking out a yarn store last weekend with a friend. It has been under new ownership since she had been there and due to the location of it I hadn't been there myself. I will NEVER shop there again and I had such a bad experience there that I'll blog about it, but I will leave the name of the shop out. Most locals here will probably know it by my description; however I don't want to discourage people from at least giving it a chance because everyone is looking for something different.

It's a small shop in a very trendy area of Vancouver and it has a nice display in the window, I'll give them that. We walked in and immediately we both felt like we were intruding on the shop lady's time and that we were unwanted in the store.

Almost all the yarn is behind glass and on shelves that you can't touch, if you want to see/touch something you must ask the shop lady. So we looked in the glass to see what they have and I was happy to see that they had SWTC Bamboo and SWTC Oasis. I asked the shop lady if they had any SWTC Phoenix because I like the worsted weight soy silk and wanted to buy more now that I am able to see the colourways in person.

She gave me a look of disgust or was she giving my poor white cane the look I'm not quite sure, but she looked like she had a mouthful of lemon drops that were very sour when I asked her this.

She curtly replied "NO" and I asked if they wil be getting any in anytime soon, again the look of disgust washes over her face "definitely not" and that was that. After her replies I wasn't going to bother her asking if they would order some for me.

Good thing it didn't get to that because I found out the price of the SWTC Bamboo $22.50 CDN before tax!!! I purchase it online from an American shop even with taxes and duty it's cheaper. I pay $13.00 US (approx. $15.00 CDN) per ball, so I expected a brick and mortar shop to charge a bit more I was thinking $17/18 CDN before tax and that's a $4/5 CDN difference from my guessitmate and a over $7 CDN between them before taxes and duty and even with the taxes and duty it's still much cheaper online. Then add the friendly customer service I get online to the horrible in-person experience I'm going to continue to get my SWTC stash online till one of my favourite stores here finally get some in.

I think I might go to Three Bags Full and see if they would be will to order some for me directly.

Anyway, enough complaining about the lack of customer service and the lack on not being able to fondle the yarn I'm not going back there ever again. I did purchase one ball of SWTC Bamboo in the parrot colourway and hank of baby alpaca that I know I could have supported someone I liked for a much lower price, but I hate leaving a yarn store with empty hands and we didn't have time to visit anymore that day. I sucked it up and paid for them knowing that that store won't get another penny out of me even if they had Rowan Calmer in Slosh and Garnet that I said I'll pay an arm and a leg for it I got enough to make knee highs with.

No seriously!

I am still sick from the evil illness of dOOm, sigh.  Tomorrow's the destash extraganza for the knitting meetup that I need to get out and go to more.  I'm hoping that by all miracles I'll be okay enough to venture out tomorrow night and give away the wool, wool/acrylic and cotton angora yarns that I need to destash.  I have a sweaters worth of debbie bliss cotton angora that I need to find a new home for and this will be the perfect time to do so.  You'd think for someone who is allergic to such fibers she won't have them in her stash but I also have some awesome superwash merino sock yarn that I don't want to part with but I really, really should because even yummy superwash merino makes my throat sore and tighten up as well as start the other allergy symptoms.  So this yarn all needs new homes.  

Also a very large thanks to my SP, who sent me the wonderful Amy R. Singer's No Sheep For You book.  SQUEE!  Despite being hoarse due to a swollen sore throat I did a happy dance and squee
when it came in the mail today.  To think I was about to go out and by this either before my trip to San Rafael or during guide dog handler training there.  I can't wait to cast on the Cheeky Ribbed socks, Cables and Os (cardi) and Tucany (shawl).  Another really cool thing in this book is Me-friendly (read Amy-friendly and/or wool allergy friendly as well) knitted trummed mitts!!!  How cool is that huh?!  They are made from cotton and silk roving in lieu of wool and wool roving, I might make myself a pair of these in the fall even though I don't really wear mittens these I'll make an exception for.  So thank you to my Secret Pal you made my day today.

As for the progress of my mini clapotis in SWTC Phoenix it was completed then frogged due to being way too small, so I'm going to mod the mod!  Lol, yep I'm a geek and proud 8-)

If it's not broken, don't fix it!

So the title of this post is directed to Interweave Knits. I finally got my spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits in the mail (why does it take so long to mail to Canada come on OMFG it was sent on March 22 it was on newstands here last month I hope the rest of my subscription doesn't take this long!) and now I see what the whole fuss is about. I hate the new layout! I'm open to new ideas but I found the new layout very frustrating trying to find patterns especially mainly because some of the background colours that showcase the finished objects do not contrast well with the chosen font colour of the pattern name and page number. This issue does have a few patterns that I really want to knit like the green tea raglan, roza's socks, dollar and a half cartigan, petunia's tote and last but not least cable-down raglan. That's a lot of knitting but hey I probably won't get to them for a long time. Anyhoo that's my 2 cents on the new interweave knits spring 2007 issue. I'm happy to hear Eunny Jang is the new editor of interweave knits, please Eunny bring back the old format we miss it!

I casted a new problem onto the needles yesterday a mini clapotis with SWTC Phoenix in the Napa Valley colourway and it's looking very purdy. I'll take a picture when I'm feeling a bit better. I'm recovering from a cold right now. Oh and Andrea is you are reading this I am using the stitch markers I bought from your etsy site and I love them!

Here comes the sun

So I'm back from a week in California and after many, many months of rain here in the lower mainland it's sunny outside!! Many of us have been extremely grumpy due to lack of sunshine this winter and I recovered by insisting on a trip to California for some much needed sun therapy. It was beautiful and the fog wasn't too bad where we were staying. I didn't get much knitting done, however I did frog the sock I was knitting out of Cascade Fixation again! I did get some yarn from S's aunt who we were staying with. I picked out some pretty ribbon yarn, a few balls of Lily's Sugar and Cream cotton and some pretty ack yarn which I started the Ariel scarf with but didn't get too far yet.

As for secret pal contests I won the first one!! Yay me. The next contest Robyn wants us to blog about our favourite knitting accessory and I'm finding it hard to pick just one! So I've decided to choose two.

First, my knitpicks option needle set. I love this interchangable needle set, the needles and cable joins are nice and smooth and the bonus is the needles are sharp enough to be great for knitting lace. I'm working on my first Branching Out scarf with my Knitpick Options. Another great thing about this set is when you are travelling you have most of the needles you will need at your disposal and I'm will be definately bringing these to guide dog school with me next month!

My other favourite knitting accessory is my go knit pouch see them here I love that you can attach it to your loop on your jeans so you can knit in public without having to take out your yarn or worry about dropping your knitting. I did have two of these; however I did lose one on public transit and now never travel without it being attached to something. It carries small projects really well and you still have room for your other accessories like a crochet hook, stitch markers, extra dpns etc.. I have a camouflage one and hope in the future to be a owner of a burgundy one. I attach my pooh bear dangles to them because I tend to use these as stitch markers sometimes and it also helps me find my bag :-D