Really Random Thursday: Knitting, Friends, Swifts, and Hockey

SOoooo - it's been a long time since I had my blogging wits about me for a random Thursday but I'm happy to play Randomeer today!

1) I've been knitting socks like a madwoman over the summer and into the fall. Seriously.  There's been lots of knitting.  Two shawls as well.  And then a little project to deal with leftover sock yarn.

Pattern info clockwise from top left here, here, here, here and here.  Warning about the Honeycomb socks and the Skew socks - they are not really great for folks with high arches/insteps.  The reason that super-cool diagonal is not gracing my foot is because they don't fit my arch and I can't get them on.  Luckily, they fit a friend!

Why all the socks?  Well, the company that makes the only store-bought socks I really liked manufactured items in the factory that collapsed this spring in Bangladesh and then refused to sign any legally binding agreement that would help to make conditions better and safer the people who work there. Several petitions and activist emails later, they still haven't signed and I'm resigned to make my own socks until I can find an ethical mass-made version. 

2) Cindy - yes, THAT Cindy! :-)  sent me a great little bag for my sock-knitting shenanigans.  Look at the perfect fabric she chose... Look at the measuring tape drawstrings!! I heart her.

The socks in the bag are Tintern Abbey, but I'll say this about them, I haven't quite perfected the Sherman Toe/Heel and thankfully am past the heels though I had to reknit them many, many times... Lots of Grr-argh going on.  But it should be smooth sailing from here!

3) Sometimes in life, one's project-loving father retires after 46 years and begins to spend his days in the same house where one's mother has been spending her own relaxed retirement.  First - there's fancy party where one wears a dress and one does the "Snap the picture, already" fashion pose...

To keep him from knocking down walls, taking apart engines and calling out very early in the morning for people to get a move on and help out, or to stop one's mother from demanding he get a part time job because he's driving her crazy...., one comes up with a project and begs for a much needed yarn swift!!

Tada!! Totally collapsible, works like a charm, and no more using my feet and knees!

I use a bag clip to wind center-pull balls - works pretty slick and keeps the tail out of the way!

But no worries - there is no trouble on the M household front. My parents are still incredibly cute.  But now they can have date night any night of the week.  They're schmoopy like that.

4) And another reason for all the knitting is the most wonderful time of the year is upon us again - hockey season!! :-)  I knit while watching to keep from getting too yell-y/bouncy....

Surprisingly, I had never been to a live NHL game before.  I know that an exhibition game in town here doesn't exactly count but I got tickets for my birthday to the Jets/Bruins game here in Sept. It was awesome. The Bruins brought all their stars. We had great seats.  B's 5-0.

I'm on the home blue line - someone pinch me!!

5) And finally, it's really disappointing when the CBC can't spell in the Hockey Night in Canada app....

What's a transcation??

Linking up with the Randomeers at LiveAColorfulLife!  Thanks for hosting, Cindy!

Progress. Or not.

The trouble with doing a tutorial on random piecing is that you end up with random pieced blocks and not necessarily an end game... 

Th opportunity with doing a tutorial on random piecing is that you end up with a healthy start on an improvised quilt top.

I sewed all my chip and chunks into blocks and started to play with a layout.

Hmmm. Not quite.

Nope.

Interesting...

That's better.

Added some Kona ash.

It's grown a little bit since I took this photo (into a completed top) but my lighting isn't great and I didn't have room to lay down an entire top. :-(  But you get the gist.

Using up my leftover pieces in the centre improv block meant that 8 fat quarters ultimately boiled down to this pretty tiny pile of scraps.  The pile of ash scraps is a little larger but I used the better part of 3 yards on background and binding strips.  I'm thinking I'll quilt it with orange lines... We'll see.

So that's progress.

Weather-wise, not so much.  I woke up to this.

But that's okay...

Brilliant ad campaign, eh?

Yes, on Saturday, the Leafs finally made the playoffs.  First time in 9 years.  I haven't stopped doing the happy dance since. I don't even care if they make it out of the first round.... (I daren't use exclamation points; THAT'S how excited I am.)

I started a pair of socks.  I have a history of knitting something simple during playoffs (hands busy, mouth quieter) and finished a long-running project last year so I need a new one.  This will not be it.

I was reminded after missing a goal, and having to take back every other repeat, that lace and hockey don't mix. Back to the drawing board...

Broken-hearted

There have been three very sad deaths in the hockey community in the last four months.  Two of them were guys from Saskatoon.  One of them, I'd actually met.

The death of Wade Belak hits pretty close to home.  Within a block, in fact.  I can't tell you what I was dressed as for Halloween in 1991, but I can tell you who opened the door we knocked on at the seventh house.  Hushed and excited whispers as we walked away.

I watched him play I don't know how many games with the Saskatoon Blades, our hometown junior hockey team. He was a solid player, and only retired from the NHL this March, after playing with a number of teams, the Maple Leafs being one of them.  My father told stories about going with him to the children's ward at one of the hospitals in town and seeing Wade get mauled by kid after kid, a human jungle gym, staying for hours until the nurses finally sent him home...  We were talking about him just this past Sunday before dinner, about how we might actually have to watch Battle of the Blades (Dancing with the Stars on-ice for ex-hockey players) this year because he was going to be competing.  There's no doubt in my mind that he'd have won.  He was a favourite in town and a favourite in the hockey world.  And I have never heard anyone say a negative word about him whenever his name came up.

I was driving home yesterday afternoon when I heard the news.  It's all kinds of horrible. Today, everywhere I went, the air was filled with "Did you hear...?" and "What?!? No... That's so sad..." and people telling stories about him. My heart goes out to his family, along with prayers - if my heart broke, I can't imagine how devastating it is for those who were close to him.  I wish them healing and hope they find solace.  I hope they know he will be missed by many.

Rest in Peace, Wade.

Cowl progress and a really Good Night

I started a cowl the other day based on this scarf pattern.  I wanted something with texture because it's grey but also to showcase the yarn.

I changed it up just a little, preferring to use a provisional cast-on so I can graft the ends together to form one long loop.  I find that cowls keep my neck cosier and I don't have to worry about the migrating off my body while flailing and gesticulating wildly (which I am wont to do, on occasion.  Or daily. Depends on the day, really.)  The pucker stitch looks much more complicated than it is.

I used a merino-cashmere blend with which I fell madly in love and knew I had to stash until I found the right project but could only afford two balls.  But oh my my my, it has such a nice touch to it!! Knits beautifully, too, of course.  I'd have loved to stash enough for a sweater but until I win the lottery, marry rich, or invent the greatest thing since the iPhone, I'm outta luck.  At least a cowl lets me snuggle up to it simply by shrugging my shoulders.  :-)  Sigh.

I've kitchenered the ends already but it still needs to be blocked and modelled for the camera...  Waiting on the light now.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The Good Night & The Great Game:  If you don't care about sports, you can quit reading this post now. I won't be offended in the least.

I've had two teams since childhood.  The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins.  Never have I seen either of them lift The Cup.  Until tonight.  So, that's what it feels like!!  And yes, I cried a bit.

Dear Bruins,
       Thank you.  You played hockey like champions, with hearts on your sleeves and hard work strewn in every corner.
       Thomas, you were beyond amazing.  Unbelievable.  Conn Smythe is well-earned.  And you are one classy fellow.  I'd say, don't let it change you, but I know it won't. Also, that beard is incredible.  And you laying Sedin flat on his ass was one of the greatest things I saw all year.  I owe you a very large beer.
        Bergeron, I may name a child Patrice. (I'm serious.) Also, if you could tell Johnny Boychuk that I'm available, it would greatly improve the chances of that happening. (Kinda serious.  :-)
         Marchand, you're just getting started.  And your heart is bigger than you are.  It may be bigger than Chara is.
         Recchi, you are faster at 43 than I was at 21, or ever, for that matter - one hell of a career - you will be missed!
         Campbell, it's a shame you will never get the recognition you deserve as a solid player because your dad was in charge of the Wheel of Justice. May the Days of Shannahan bring you the accolades.
          Boychuk, you are one good-looking man, in addition to being awesome on the ice.  You may have bumped Jumbo Joe from the #1 spot on my Hockey Crush list.
          Chara, Lucic, McQuaid, Krejci, Seguin, Paille, Horton, Peverley, Thornton, Ference, Seidenberg, Ryder, Kaberle, Kelly, and all the others... I adore you.  That disappointment with Edmonton way back and that one with Philly last year - both are forgotten.
          My continued love forever,
                      Carly

Dear Vancouver rioters,
        Not cool.  You made the city look bad, Canucks fans (real ones, you know, the kind that take losses like Canadians - with sportsmanship) look bad, and Canada look bad, and acted like complete idiots.  This is not how we do things.  Period.
        I repeat, not cool.

Dear Bettman,
        I only wish I could have been there to boo you in person. I'm not generally in favour of booing, especially when it comes to anthems and players, but you're special that way.

Dear Brian Burke,
        Please pretend you're Santa and sign Brad Richards. Thanks for keeping Reimer around.  I already have the t-shirt.  It's flocked.

Dear Maple Leafs,
        Puck's in your end, now.  I'm waiting....

It just keeps coming... but I was quilting anyway

That old saying, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans", is so very true.  I've had a lot going on.  I figured that once the semester was over, I'd somehow get everything back to normal. HA!! No.

I took a spring class which took up an extraordinary amount of time, picked up more hours at work, logged a serious amount of Nephew/Auntie-time, and haven't missed more than two or three playoff games*.   It has taken me a month to catch up on my blog-reading, get my crap organized, and start planning for my internship.  And then there's been some personal blech that I won't go into here.  PS.  If you're little and donate blood, don't make plans for the rest of the day.  Also, keep candy on your person.

Somewhere in there, a friend of mine had a baby shower for a nugget of cuddly babyness.  And how could  I go to celebrate a wee one like that empty-handed?

I didn't.  A Max&Whiskers charm pack and some Kona solids later... Perfect for a tiny Irish gentleman.  (I also need to call his mother for a coffee date, too, now that I have a little more time.)

Normally, I'm anti-charm-pack, but for baby quilts, they're kinda perfect.  I've got two more baby quilts on the go.  Pictures coming soon, along with pictures of how I'm keeping my hands busy and my language in check during the Cup run.**  :-)

*(And no, I'm not cheering for Vancouver.  Boston and Toronto have been my teams since childhood and I'm not a fan of the Van style of 'hockey'.  Supporting the Bruins DOES NOT make me un-Canadian and I will drop gloves with those who attempt, wrongly, to insist otherwise. I will be happy to unfurl my laundry list of hockey rants and biases some other time.  Plus, Boston has more Canadians on the team. ;p) 
**I can be completely mild mannered but when watching players dive, linemen blow calls and listening to commentators who either don't know what's going on or have blatantly chosen a side, praising behaviour that has no place in the great game of hockey, I am far less eloquent than usual.)

Scott's Chicken Wings

This recipe was passed onto me by Scott.  Scott is my good friend's sister's boyfriend. (uncle's cousin's dermatologist's paperboy - which makes us as close as Helmet and Lonestar.  Spaceballs, anyone? No?)  I met him once when a large number of us went carousing.  But before we caroused, there was wine.  And tapas.  And these incredibly, ridiculously easy and delicious wings.  I begged him for the recipe.  Begging works.

Ingredients:  

Chicken drummettes or wing tips, or go crazy and get both
Lime juice, about one cup for every 20-30 pieces of chicken  (You can use the RealLime bottled stuff.  It'll be okay.  It's not considered cheating. But using lemon juice would be.  Use the lime.  Do it.)
Montreal Steak Spice.

Yup.  That's the good stuff.

Marinate your chicken in the lime juice for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.  We were lazy today and used ziplocs so that we could turn and flip and toss without a lot of mess.  (Little did we know...  Mess will find you other ways...)
Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Place your chicken pieces on greased or lined cookie sheets.  Sprinkle liberally with Montreal Steak Spice.

 Liberally!  With intent.  In fact, just to be sure, when you think you've added enough, turn your cookie sheet one-eighty and check there is no nekkid chicken from the other angle.

Now, I will point out that I over-crowded my chicken today.  Try to only marinate as much chicken as will reasonably fit in your oven.  Also, use a rimmed baking sheet, especially if you plan to over-crowd your chicken.  Why? You can either cook your chicken on rimmed sheets or use one to hold the scrapings of chicken juice-turned-charcoal from the bottom of your oven.  (I did say that mess finds you in other ways...)

I had made these wings before on a non-lipped sheet without incident but today..., today, I over-crowded and it bit me in the ash.  We had three fans going for a half an hour and had to interrupt cooking for a quarter so just use rimmed sheets.  Do it.

Bake your wings for 30-35 minutes.  Flip and be a libertine once more with the steak spice.  Sprinkly wantonly!  Return to oven for another 30-35 minutes or until chicken is browned and beginning to crisp.

Serve with napkins.
Also goes nicely with a side of sports, particularly if your team is doing well.  Go, Riders!

Sweet Nostalgia; Random Connections

On the street where I grew up, like the streets where everyone else grew up, you could mark seasons by the sounds.  Summer brought the whir of lawnmowers, the subsequent clank when one mower would pick up a rock and send it shooting across the sidewalk, the clickety-tap of neon-coloured beads on bicycle tires,  or engines revving as teenagers took to drag-racing down the stretch after curfew.  In winter, metal shovels scraping against cement driveways, toboggans dragging on asphalt behind sixty-pound children wrapped in eighty pounds of scarf, and tinny, choking engines trying to turn over.
Regardless of the season, you could hear the kid across the street firing hockey pucks against the garage door.  But the timbre and pitch of the bang would let you know if it were a crisp autumn morning or a balmy spring evening.  It was a constant reminder that it was an ordinary day in an ordinary neighbourhood.  To this day, the sound is comforting and bittersweet.
Tonight, that kid from across the street hoisted the Stanley Cup.   Ordinary day for me.  Extraordinary day for him.
They put residential speed bumps on the stretch, we moved to a crescent, and most people have replaced shovels with snowblowers.  But no matter the season, there's always a kid banging pucks against the garage.

Busy week but nothing done...

Well, it has been a long one. Dramatic in more ways than one. Historic in more ways than one. Histrionic in more ways than necessary.

Naturally, I've spent way too much time in front of the television, trying to time channel flips to catch the most Olympic moments I could. And they have been wonderful. Heart-warming. Heart-breaking. And occasionally, embarrassing. Particularly embarrassing is the first half of a pair of mittens I started knitting to keep my hands busy and actually feel like I wasn't being completely unproductive while I cheered for Latvia, Russia, Ghana (Go, Snow Leopard!!), Norway, Germany, Australia, Slovenia, India, and the rest of the nations gathered in Vancouver. It's not pretty. I'll show you, if I ever get them finished, the consequences of knitting while watching hockey.... It's sad. Homeliness, thou art a hockey mitten.

I did get the shop updated. Not that I made anything this week but I had a few items I was selling locally on hand and have added them to the inventory. Made a bunch of dust covers for some equipment at work. Ran a bunch of errands. The usual.

And, in what may prove to be pure folly, I snagged a pair of used cross-country skis for the budget-busting price tag of a whopping ten dollars. They will have their maiden voyage tomorrow morning before I settle in to watch the last game. (I predict ibuprofen with a Pepto-bismal chaser.) But after two weeks of watching the best athletes in the world while sitting on the chesterfield, I'm feeling a distinct and inspired need to get off my marshmallow-y behind.

Silliness. On all fronts.

Hey there, Thumbper. What's the matter?

Ooooooh. Ouch. Plastic bakeware-safe knife, you say? Because I didn't grease the brownie pan properly in haste to watch the hockey game? Because I was rushing to grab a brownie on my way back to the tv and slipped with the plastic bakeware-safe, good-for-lettuce, knife? And what's with the overly-dramatic lighting?

No, I don't think you need stitches. Yes, it's deep but that's what Superglue's for...

Walk it off, Thumbper. Walk it off.

The Shape of My Heart (Warning: May contain extreme Canadian-ness)

It looks like this....

Wide and flat and kinda pointy? Probably. I get incredibly spirited when the Olympics come around and so this Valentine's Day:

My heart...

...is excited to see all the different nations come together. It cheers for underdogs, from everywhere. (GO, Jamaican Bobsled Team!!!)

...thinks American Shannon Bahrke hugging every competitor that came down the mogul run after her with wild and supportive abandon was pretty cool. (GO, for hugs!)

...bleeds for Georgia. (There are no words...)

...loves, loves, loves The Great Game, will be rooting hard for Team Canada, and respects Crosby but would be leaps and bounds more excited to meet Ovechkin.

...doesn't really understand short-track speed-skating.

...actually gets weepy during inspirational commercials, medal presentations, heartbreaks and successes.

...is a little embarrassed about said weepiness. (Seriously, it's not even hormone-related. Unless there's such a thing as "that time of the Olympiad." )

...watches the events we don't have contenders in with the same enthusiasm as the ones we do. Who doesn't love to randomly adopt another country's athletes and just start cheering? (GO, Lithuania!)

...wonders how they made those whales during the opening ceremonies and who's that slam poet guy? Wow to both. (slight edge goes to the whales but the poem is here)

...has a sense of humour drier than the best of ginger ales. (GO, Canada Dry!)

...will always say "eh". I simply can't help myself and I'm not sure I really want to.

...hates the 'cheer' invented by Pepsi. As much as they're still evil, Coca-Cola just gets it. Pepsi, you don't. (PS. The Coke commercials are some of the ones that choke me up... I wish I was joking.)

...wishes it was in Vancouver.

Well, that is my maple-flavoured, bacon-wrapped, beer-dipped, "aboot"-saying heart's feelings today. I hope yours, no matter its shape or flavour, is equally full.

If this post is too full of Canadiana and rampant enthusiasm for you, I'm sorry. Oh, that was a little bit Canadian, too. Sorry. Ah, nuts. I'm just so excited.......!!!!!!!

PS. If you happen to have Sting's Shape of My Heart stuck in your head for the next few days, there is no need to thank me. You. Are. Welcome. :-)

So close....

Going in as an underdog.

Losing by one point after a stupid illegal substitution. Dramatic until the end. He shanked the ball. We thought we had it. And then the bad guys get a do-over...

Pretty much sums up my week. :-) [Looks quietly skyward to say, "What is this? Sweepes?]

Riders - I am still proud of you. You played one hell of a game. Grey Cup or no. You'll get 'em next year.

If you don't want to know the outcome of the CFL Western Final, don't read this post....

... because we're going to the Grey Cup, baby!!

Rider Nation - Sky of Blue, Sea of Green