I had a good weekend, it was eventful and charming and a few things happened that will never happen again, and that’s always good. First, I “swept” my first training ride.

That’s me and Jen and the two other sweeps who were very gentle with the newbies. “Sweeping a ride” is when you agree that you’ll ride slower than the slowest rider to make sure that nobody get’s left behind.  On the long rides (this one was 83km) two sweeps ride bikes, and two sweeps travel in a car, driving the route over and over again, making sure that all the riders are ok. Jen and I had a first aid kit (we didn’t have to use it, thank goodness) and water and a pump, and all the riders did really great, except for one guy who hit a pothole and got two flats 30km from home.  (We drove him to the subway.) Jen and I have to sweep three more rides, but we’re ever so grateful that we got our first one done without anybody calling 911, which I think was absolutely our biggest fear.

I got home, washed the dirt off of me, and headed over to Lou’s house, which is really Kate and Carlo’s house (on account of they are the adults, and they hold the mortgage, despite the way that the worlds most charming two year old runs the place.)

(That’s Lou’s first selfie. What kind of a person gives a two year old a smartphone so he can take a selfie? <raises hand slowly> I did. Clearly I value his fun more than my phone.)

Last week, after months of work and study, Carlos became a Canadian citizen.

We’re all so proud to have him, and so there were Canadian presents and Canadian food, Canadian drinks (that would be the magnificent cocktail known as the Ceasar. Virtually unknown outside of Canada, and the worlds a poorer place for it.)

There was everyone dressed in Canadian clothes, and flags and posters and good wishes and nobody could have been happier for him.  Carlos has spent the last few weeks asking Canadians questions from the citizenship test, and then demanding they turn over their passports if they don’t know the answers. It’s funnier than it sounds, and highlights how very hard it is to get that precious passport, if you weren’t lucky enough to be born in this safe, prosperous and beautiful country. (Sorry. Some national pride leaked out there.)

It was a wonderful day.

Today of course, is another thing. This morning I woke up and discovered that I had about 10 000 bounced emails. (That number isn’t a joke.) I called Liquid Web right away (they’re awesome, if you’re ever wondering) and found out that while I slept my email had been compromised, and a really, really, really huge number of emails had been sent from my server. We changed my password, said some unbelievably unkind things about spammers,  the dude cleaned out the thousands and thousands of emails waiting to be sent from the server, and assured me that things would be okay now.   I went for a bike ride.

When I came back, I had about 20 000 notifications of bounced mail, and as I sat down in front of my computer wondering how I was ever, ever going to delete all that, I noticed something AMAZING if by amazing, you understand that I mean completely horrible.

I was getting 256 emails per minute.

You can bet your stash that I was back on the phone with Liquid Web in about two shakes of a lambs tail, and found out that while everything is going to be okay, it’s going to take a while to be okay.  Turns out my client can only download 256 per minute. That’s the cap. There’s so many waiting to be downloaded (ones that already belong to me as a result of the overnight incursion) that it’s going to take three days to stop. THREE DAYS – and during that time my computer is going to be so busy I might as well forget I have email.

I got 4000 emails while we were talking about it.

Dude gave me some information on how to deal with it, advised me that the best thing I could do was wait for it to stop, and then sort it, and said I was going to have a “super unproductive day.”  He sounded genuinely sympathetic.  He suggested I have a beer and try not to think about it.

That’s totally what I’m doing, and let me tell you this.

There’s no such thing as unproductive around here.  No email? That’s cool.  I have something else to do.

Popping in quickly, since today’s a bear. I’ve been up since 5:30  (training. It raining on me. Not my best morning, really) and I’ve got a ton to do, but didn’t want the day to sneak by without the blog, even if it was only to give away some Karmic Balancing Gifts!

As an aside, I’ve had a few questions about what’s going on here, and I realized that I sort of assumed everyone knew, and here I was leaving new readers in the dark.  Sorry guys!

Me and my little family team are training for the Friends for Life Bike Rally, which takes place in July. On that day, more than 300 cyclists (if you can call me that) will depart Toronto, and ride our way to Montreal – more than 600km away.  The trip takes days, and is really more than a little hard, and to make sure as much money as possible goes to the charity, we do a few things that make it harder… like camp, and help serve meals and clean up. (The camping can be a bit hard on the heart you’re tired, or hurting, or if it rains.

We do all this to raise money for People With Aids, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of people with, well. I guess that’s an obvious one. They exist to promote the health and well-being of all people living with HIV/AIDS by providing accessible, direct and practical support services.  Everyone’s involved for their own reasons, but for me its that more than half of the people in the world with HIV/AIDS are women, women are more biologically vulnerable to the virus than men, and women are a fast growing part of new infections.

Put that together with the reality that I’m a woman, most of my friends and community are women, I’m the mother of three daughters, and the knitting community that I adore and earn my living in is largely women, and you’ve got a dumpy 45 year old on a bike trying to raise as much money as I can. You donate, I ride.

How do you get in on helping the world be a better place? Easy. You donate whatever you are able to someone on our little family team (all knitters, every one of us.)

Me

Jen

Ken

Samantha

Amanda

Pato

and then send an email to me at Stephanie@yarnharlot.ca with “Enter me” as the subject line, and give me your address, and whether or not you’d like to be in it for spinning gifts, or just knitting. Then I’ll pull names every so often, and whammo. You might get something nice, just for being nice.  Spread the word.

Whats the first gift today? A beautiful skein of BFL High Twist sock yarn (the colourway is Woodland Fairy) from Prairie Knitting yarns, will be winging it’s way to Karen SH.

Wanna have your mind blown a little? Erica knit this amazing shawl.  (It’s Anne Hanson’s Bee Fields – lovely pattern.)  Isn’t she clever? Yeah, well, that’s not the end of the wonder that is Erica, because she’s donated it as a gift.

All that gorgeous work will be going to live with  Lisa L, and I know that it will give Erica a great deal of pleasure to know that it will be enjoyed by someone who knows exactly how much work it was.

More? You betcha. I love this one.  Staci Lockman draws house portraits from the photographs you send her.

I know! Cool, right? I mean, I don’t have a house pretty enough to need it’s portrait done (although maybe she could draw the evestroughs so that they don’t look like they’re falling off, and sort of fix the siding) but there’s people on my Christmas list who would LOVE THIS, and I hope that’s true for Carolyn M, because Staci’s going to do one for her.  I hope she enjoys the idea as much as I do.

Meet Sharon – or at least meet the generous spirit of Sharon from New Zealand.  She’s donated two beautiful skeins of yarn from Bleating Art (a new indie dyer out of New Zealand) and aren’t they pretty?

That gorgeous one is Amethyst, and will fly to Diane P.  This one is Aurora:

… and I bet Jenn R gives it a very good home.

Done? Me either.  Look at this.

Neat, isn’t it? It’s a 10 skein mini-set from Three Fates Knitting, and Stephania will be mailing it to Sara P, and I bet she feels some striped socks coming on.  (I sort of do.)

JavaPurl Designs has five patterns to give away –  Five lucky knitters will each choose their favourites from amongst her designs.  Personally, I like these – Socks for Ten (Dr. Who inspired) but Doreen S, Deidre C, Alicia L, Karen H  and Jennifer C  shouldn’t let my dorkiness influence them.

One more? I thought so too – and I’ve saved the one that charmed me the most for last. Rachel (of PorpoiseFur) wrote and said this:

Hi Stephanie,
 
I’m a long time blog reader, and when I saw you were starting to give away Karmic Balancing gifts for your bike ride fundraiser, I knew I had the perfect one.
 
Three years ago, I was riding my bike a lot training for my own bike fundraiser – the 2011 Deloitte Ride Across Britain. This ride started at the northern-most point of Great Britain, John O’Groats in Scotland, and finished 9 days later at Land’s End, right down at the very tippy end of southwestern Cornwall. The money raised went to benefit Paralympics GB.
 
So there I was, off in the hills of Surrey, riding my bike up and down lots and lots of hills. I came down a hill to a T intersection, and noticed there was oncoming traffic. I slowed down, unclipped my right foot, put my foot out and promptly fell over on to my left butt cheek. The incredibly spectacular bruise that developed over the course of the next few days covered an area about 10 cm by 30 cm down my left hip, and was the most perfect blue-purple shade of bruise that ever bruised.
 
Being a fiber dyer, as well as a knitter and spinner, I was immediately inspired to recreate my bruise coloration on wool, so I developed “Haematoma” (photo attached). I’d like to offer one 4 oz bundle of “Haematoma” on Corriedale as a Karmic Balancing Gift for your fundraiser.

Cheers,

Rachel

For the record, I am here to assure you (from my very recent fall last week) that this is the exact, perfect colouration.

I hope that Andra C appreciates what Rachel does for her art. (Ouch.)

That’s it for today! More gifts next week, and if you’ve emailed me about a gift, and I haven’t answered, know that I almost certainly got it, put it in a file, and am working my way down the rather astonishing list.  You guys really, really know how to balance Karma.

I’m coming in under the wire on this one.  I promised myself I’d knit 12 pairs of socks before Christmas this year, and it worked out to churning out a pair every 27 days. (Or so, it was really more like every 27.84 days, but I’m dropping the fraction.) This morning I got up and did a few things, and worked for a bit, and then while I was at my computer it chimed, and an alert popped up in the corner. It said “Sock.”

This is because I am totally a big enough dork that I entered the deadline in my calendar for every 27 days, and set an alarm to remind me. (I know. I’m so hip it hurts.  Somewhere my children are flinching that sock deadlines are a real thing in my world.)

As it popped up, I realized the flaw in my plan.  I should have set the deadline, and then set a warning alarm for a few days before, because telling me that I have a sock due on the day that it’s due is really – well. It lit a fire under me this morning, and I was super lucky I only had a half foot to go, and I could finish this fetching pair.

These are Stranded Show-off Socks, and they were a party on the needles, and I mean that. Super fun to knit, and a great choice for this variegated yarn. The stitch pattern makes wee dashes of colour across the stitches, quite pretty, I think.  (Yarn: Skeined Alive 80/merino 10/cashmere, 10/nylon in “Vermiculture.” Great colourway. Great name.) The pattern’s got a short row variation that’s charming, and sends the stitch pattern all the way down the back of the heel and makes an oddly neat anatomical shape round the arch.  I like ’em.

Changes to the pattern? Just one, and I’m not sure that it’s a change at all, because I didn’t check. When the time came for the toe, I just did my current favourite, without looking to see which toe the designer recommended. I like a nice round toe.  It’s a quirk.

The roundish variation I do on the standard toe fits the same way, but I like how it looks better off – Not that it matters – except it does.  (Because you’ll ask, I do a standard toe, but change the rate of decrease. 1 decrease round, 4 plain. 1 decrease round, then 3 plain. 1 decrease round, then 2 plain… see where I’m going? When there’s no rounds left to set between the decrease rounds, I just decrease all the time until it looks right. Like a toe.)

So, voila.  On track to finish the year with at least 12 pairs, and you can bet that I added an alarm before the next deadline. I don’t want to get caught again. I might not be able to knit my way out of it.  I’m off to the sock yarn cupboard. Mama needs a flash new sock project.

When I was growing up, that whole thing with the colours and the seasons was really big. You were supposed to look at your complexion and your hair and the colour of your eyes, and then you’d know what colours you were allowed to wear, or what you’d look good in.  My mum did it. She always looks great too, so when she told me I was a spring, or a summer or whatever the hell season it was, I totally believed her. I still do believe her – it’s just that the results of that test were so disappointing. I remember all the colours being blue and pink and god help me…teal.  There’s nothing wrong with those colours of course, it’s not like one colour can really be better than another – it’s all a matter of perspective. One person’s pink is another’s pepto-bismol Barbie-esque nightmare, and I remember being a little devastated that I was doomed to a life of wearing colours that I didn’t really like.

Then something happened. I… grew up. Is that the right phrase? Is it what happened? I’m not sure, but I remember waking up one morning and looking at my fushia blouse and my teal jacket and my pink scarf and thinking “Holy wing of a moth, I hate you” and something snapped, and I started buying stuff I liked. Sienna. Olive. Yellow iron oxide, raw umber, sap green, ochre, rust, brown, and (much to my mother’s initial shock, although I think she’s over it now) ORANGE.

I love orange. also happen to think that it looks fabulous on me, but truth be told, I don’t know if that’s a real thing, or if it’s just that I love it so much that I feel good in it, and therefore believe that it looks fabulous, when really it makes me look like an anemic mole rat.

I don’t care.  Spring, summer, whatever it is that I’m supposed to be, in my heart I am an autumn, and systems be damned, I’m happiest dressed like a tree in fall.

This last Color Affection (and I think it might be my last, it’s possibly out of my system) makes me so happy I can’t even tell you.  It goes with my orange coat, my brown coat, my green shirts… all of my favourite tree garb, and it’s deliciously soft and bouncy to boot. (Oh. It also goes with all my boots.)

Pattern: Color Affection, Yarn: Plucky Knitter “Feet” in (I think – the tags are long gone) Aperitif, Ever After and Sock Monkey.  4mm needles.  Knit with a few modifications. First, I did a yarnover between each first and second stitch, dropping it on the return rows to give a little extra length. Then I also continued the second section (short rows) until I was out of stitches. made it a little longer, and wider, which was nice with a fine yarn.

I am going to wear this all the time. Me and orange. Dark orange. Vibrant orange. Orange that’s dirty or cozy or bright. Orange like fruit, or maple trees in the sun, or monarch butterflies, or tulips or crayons or pumpkins or piles of persimmons.   Orange, orange, orange. It might be almost my favourite. Maybe.

You can keep peach, and melon, and palest apricot. I love big orange, and I don’t care if it suits my complexion. It suits my nature.

(Sorry mum.)

Well.  I don’t know what happened to the last five days, but if you see them wandering around, send them this way, will you?  The thing I remember was packing my bags on Wednesday to head down to the Buffalo Guild, and then whammo. I’m here. The time went by so fast that I can’t even totally remember it all.  I remember driving for the border… and then next thing I knew I was standing in my trashed kitchen last night trying to figure out what train hit me.  I had to check my camera for clues.  There was this one, evidence that the lesson I got in how to take panoramic pictures has set, and when I look at this snap I have a warm fuzzy feeling, so I can tell you that the guild was lovely, and everyone there was charming, and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

There’s this one, and I sort of remember taking it. Blossoms outside the hotel I stayed in and clearly the only other time I thought about owning a camera until I got back home, which sort of makes sense because I taught 4 classes in two days to at least 80 extremely nice knitters – which was super awesome. (I didn’t take their pictures, except for above.)

Somewhere along the line I took a picture of my wheel, with my current spinning on it. (I must have felt accomplished.) The astute among you will note that this is not the promised “Tardis in Flight” but instead just “Tardis” since when Samantha saw the blog she claimed the previous roving before I could spin it. (She’s seldom taken with the urge. A mother has to support these things.)

There’s a picture of a sock and a half – proof that at some point over the last five days I did knit, quite a bit, actually.  (I also have a recollection of watching a documentary, so I think they must have been concurrent.)

The astute among you will note that the sock you see before you is not the sock that I started. The yarn is Skeined Alive 80/merino 10/cashmere, 10/nylon in “Vermiculture”  and originally I’d picked Anne Hanson’s Sign of Four as the pattern.  Turns out they were a bad combo, and you couldn’t see the subtle and beautiful stitch pattern at all in that yarn, so out it came to be replaced with Show-off Stranded Socks, and that’s working beautifully.

There’s a picture of Color Affection blocking… so that must be done.

And then there’s this one of Sam and Lou, this was right before he drooled in her eye. (I remember that – along with the chorus of “eeeewwww Looouuuuu!” that went up round our Victoria Day dinner gathering. (Oh! Right, it was Victoria Day yesterday!)

From this morning, there’s this, when Jen and I peeled out of our respective beds, and hauled arse 46km through the city in what looks like a decidedly unromantic chunk of town.

The sign is requiring protective gear. We have helmets and padded shorts. That’s probably enough. I know we look a little crazed, but if you had to ride through that construction zone at dawn you’d be lucky if you only looked that berserk.

Five days, gone like they were nothing, when I know they were so full. I really hope I got enough done. I’m a little tired.

(PS. We’ve finished juggling hotel rooms at the Resort, and if you’re into this sort of thing, we’ve got ONE spot left for a lucky knitter who likes to/would like to cook at the Strung Along June “Knit, Play, Cook” Retreat.  (That’s the link. The email is strungalong@yarnharlot.ca) I’m going to take a nap. Or spin. It’s almost the same. I sure hope someone cleans up the kitchen.)

Jen and I got up early this morning again, and although the ground was wet the rain had stopped and so off we went. These early morning rides, I don’t know quite what to say about them.  We love them some days,  we hate them some days, but if two slightly dumpy middle-aged mothers are going to ride with the big boys, we need them.  We’d been up late last night (if you call 10:15 late, which you should, if you’re riding 40km before work) taking care of team business and trying to find two consecutive days to do our back-to-backs.  The rally has all these deadlines designed to make sure that you’re hitting benchmarks for training. You need to do a 50k by May 18th (done!) a 90+ by June 21st (yikes) but the hardest one is the back-to-backs.  By July 6th you have to have ridden two 90+ rides in two days.

Jen and I both travel for work, both have families, both have jobs, and we knew that when we agreed not just to do the rally again, but to be team leads, that this would be tricky, but last night was ridiculous. We finally had to book actual days off of work to make it happen, because neither of us could find TWO DAYS in a row where we were both in town and not committed to something else.  We were both a little daunted, and I don’t know about Jen, but I had a largely sleepless night, turning over things in my head, trying to make it all work. 5:30 came really early, but after a long night, if you know what I mean.

This morning I drank my body weight in coffee, and left. Jen lives on one side of the city, and me on the other, so usually she rides over to my house, we do a little hill training, and then I ride her home, then come back. That way we both cross the city and back. She gets a little alone time, and so do I, but we also get to hang out a bit – if you can call cursing your way up a hill “hanging out” and I guess we do now. We were cruising along this morning and decided to take some rather dorky selfies.  (Somewhere Samantha is screaming “Mum! Quit with the selfies. You’re a dork”, and to her I say “Yes.” We are dorks, and we embrace it. We’ll do as we like.) We stopped by the big inukshuk, and we stopped in the park on Lakeshore with the dinosaurs in it.

This turned out to be a tactical error.  Those dinosaurs are fun to take a selfie with, but they’re on sand. We thought nothing of it, and traipsed across the sand, took our ridiculous selfie, and then got back on our bikes.  Sort of.  The sand had filled in our clips, the little cleats on the bottom of your riding shoes that attach you to the pedals. (Yeah, I know. It’s an incredibly stupid idea to attach yourself to a bike.  I have a few scars that prove it. It is super efficient though, except for the part where you’re occasionally crying in the dirt.) Jen and I both had trouble getting “clipped in” but we managed.  The trouble started later. The next time we wanted to “unclip” they wouldn’t come out. “I’m stuck!” cried Jen, and I would have been afraid for her, but I was too busy realizing that I was stuck too, and that we were both totally going to die.

A little panic and force and out they came, and we didn’t die after all, but we had to be really, really careful for the remainder of the ride.  We rode to Jen’s where we talked about cleaning out the clips, but in a future sort of way – and I drank (more) coffee and then rode home.  I had a couple of near misses, but every time I was able to get my foot out in time (I started doing it way before I needed my foot out) and I rode home thinking that if this had been a year ago, by now I would have been a bloodied mess of a cyclist, and I felt pretty proud of myself.

I rode to my house, and as I got close to the lane that runs to my back garden, I swung my heel out to unclip my right foot.  It didn’t come.  Now, rule number one with clips is that you only get hurt if you stop. That’s when you fall over, attached to the bike, and one of the things you learn if you ride in clips is that if you can’t unclip, you don’t stop. So, I didn’t.  I turned in the street, and rode down a ways, yanking on the clip the whole time. It eventually came free, and I circled back – rode to the bottom of the lane, stopped and put my right foot on the ground. Safe!  What a relief.  Still straddling the bike, I tried to swing my left heel out to unclip. Uh oh.  Never mind, I’m stopped already, so other than it taking a while, what’s the worst thing that can happen?   I waved at the old lady down the street who supervises everything, and then said hi to the letter carrier as she headed towards me. Then I swung my heel again, and again, and finally put a little oomph into it, if you know what I mean.

This sadly, didn’t free me, but did have the completely surprising side effect of unbalancing me entirely, and there wasn’t even time to counter,  and as I fell over left-ways – still attached to the bike, I realized that I’d discovered a whole other way to fall down. I’d literally swept myself off my own damn feet.

This was not lost on the letter carrier. Nor the lady down the street, who toddled her sweet 80+ year old self straight over to me, lying there (because I was still $%%$!ing attached to the bike) and said, in her thick Jamaican accent “I never saw nothing like that in my whole life! You were just standing there, and then you jus KNOCK YOUR OWN SELF DOWN.”

Thanks lady.  Got it.  So, there we have it. My 300+ days without a fall are over. I never even made it a year, and my mum’s idea of sponsoring my by the bruise? I have a super elegant one on my arse, just to add to the dignity of it all.  My name is Stephanie, and it’s been 0 days since my last accident.  Sigh.

Karmic Balancing gifts? Yeah. I think that would make me feel better too.   Remember – to get in on the action, you just donate to someone on our little family team –

Me

Jen

Ken

Samantha

Amanda

Pato

and then send an email to me at Stephanie@yarnharlot.ca with “Enter me” as the subject line, and give me your address, and whether or not you’d like to be in it for spinning gifts, or just knitting.  Cool?  Ok. Present time!

Dani, from KSC Designs has two beautiful gifts.  First, a circular needle case in the fabric of her choice will go to Carol D.

and a set of gorgeous box bags (again, the lucky recipient chooses the fabric) will go to Pattye B. Thanks Dani!

Liz R got super lucky – mostly because Maggie S is a little bit nuts, in a great way.  She saw this skein of 1350 yards of laceweight silk noil in the “miss-wound and hoplessly tangled” bin at her LYS, and turned it into this beautiful ball, only to realize that she’d spent enough time with it already, and had no urge to knit it.  Liz R – we hope you love it. Make something great.

Next up, three lots of patterns from  Theresa at Woolly Wits.

Group 1: Plaid mitts, Bonnie Garter Tam, Gait’s Haire Cowl & Wrap will be sent off to Mary Beth M.

Group 2: Double Dealing Scarf, Farwen, Fiber Fest Hat will be off to Anne G

Group 3. All Squared Up, Panier Purse, Mag Mile Hat. Last, but not least, will go to Ann M.

Next up, Alicia at Sweet Sheep Body Shoppe has a lovely gift.  Two bars of her handmade lotion bars will wing their way all the way to the UK, and go live with Bobbie S.  Bobbie will get to choose which two, and they look delicious.

Finally, a beautiful skein of Alley Cat yarn from Wandering Cat Yarns, in a beautiful colour called Delphinium.  (Don’t you think that delphinium coloured socks would just be the bomb?)

I hope that Jill S does, because this skein will be all hers.

Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to go take a hot bath with epsom salts in, and see what can be done about this arse. Thanks so much to everyone who’s contributing to its cause.

My day started at 5:30am.  I know there’s lots of people who get up that early, but I am so opposed to this practice that the whole idea of anyone who lives this way regularly fills me with pity.  Anytime after 7:30 seems reasonable to me, but Jen and I are starting our training rides now that it’s finally warm, and we have to get a 40 or 50km ride in before work, and that? That means getting up at 5:30am and I can’t tell you how noble it made me feel to set my alarm.  You know that feeling? That “A am such a good person” feeling? I was awash with it.

Now though, now I’m just tired, because at 5:30am my alarm went off, and at 5:32 I realized it was raining, and I spent the next minute lying there hoping Jen could hear the rain too, and hoping that she was lying in bed thinking “hell no.” Her text came at 5:33, and it essentially said “tomorrow?”   If she was here I would have kissed her on the mouth. So – there I was, awake at 5:30, and I decided to embrace it. (I also decided to overlook that the rain means I’m getting up two days in a row at 5:30, I’m happier when I don’t focus on details like that.)

As much as I hate getting up early, let me tell you something about it. It’s super productive. It’s early afternoon here, and my to-do list isn’t just finished, it’s obliterated. By the time Joe was out of bed at 8:30 I had half of it done and I’d done a load of laundry, and I’d packed (mostly) for my trip to the Buffalo Guild this weekend, and it was all I could do not to look at him as he came down over the stairs and not think about what a slacker he is. (He is not a slacker. He works very hard, but when you’ve been working for three hours while someone sleeps, it’s very easy to enjoy that feeling for a moment.  I didn’t say anything to him – just let the feeling live gloriously in my heart for a minute.) I’ve got so many things done that this afternoon, well – I can do as I like, and here’s what I like.

Pretty, yes? It’s a nun-batt from Inglenook Fibers and it’s the thing going onto the wheel today. Wait, let me open that up for you.

It’s a great colourway called “Tardis in flight”. (Check me! Spinning two Tuesdays in a row, by wool, I will have this done.) I’m going to spin it up into the next pretty skein for a Karmic Balancing gift, as the one from last week, that pretty seaglass green cotswald from Nistock Farms is now a finished skein.

It’s about 200m of a very pretty fingering weight, and I hope that Beth R loves it, because I’m mailing it to her house.  It’s not soft, but it is gorgeous, and strong and will make something hearty. (I really hope Beth likes it. Cotswald is a rare breed, and there’s fewer than 5000 purebred sheep in the world that claim that name, and that makes it a real treat to run into.)

Also today, I’m so close to finishing that freakin’ Color Affection that I can smell it. Every day I think I’m going to finish, but today might actually be that day, and I can’t wait.  I upsized it a little – sort of by accident, because I did that knitter thing where you just sort of glance at the pattern, and decide you know what it wants, and don’t check back in again until things seem a little wild? Yeah. That one.

It’s going to be big, I’m sure, already there are more than 400 stitches on the needles, and I think I’ll end up adding about 24 more before I cast off, and we’ll see what I end up with. The bind off is going to be a haul. One of those real endurance games that are best tackled with a glass of wine and something good on the telly so that you can’t really feel what’s happening.  It should be a productive day for sure… a very pleasant side effect of the early start, and I just have to remember there’s an early bedtime on the other end of it, because tomorrow, we ride at dawn. (I love saying that. It makes me feel like I’m in a cowboy movie.)

How about you? Did you get up early? Do you like it?

Hi everybody, and welcome to the first of many days of Karmic Balancing Gifts! (Yes, I’m totally distracting you from the part where I don’t have a finished Colour Affection to show you –  Maybe tomorrow.)

The first gift comes from Maureen and her brother Micheal.  Micheal makes these beautiful wooden yarn caddies (his etsy shop is Cathedral Grove) and Rosane M will be picking her favourite from Eastern Maple, Red Oak or Cherry. They’re hand made in BC. Gorgeous.

Next up, the indomitable Bonita Story from Dyed in the Wool has two beautiful  sock kits to share. Trip up the Nile will be mailed off to Susan V.

and A Walk through China will go go live with Maggie G.  Each one has a story you follow as you knit through the kit.  Cool idea, right?

Alison Hyde, as sweet as ever, has a signed copy of her book Wrapped in Comfort for Kristine R.

and not to be outdone, Jan B Smiley has beautiful, beautiful large project bags in her Etsy shop, and this gorgeous sweater sized project bag will be winging it’s way to Cecilia H.

Isn’t it pretty?  Sarah K received a karmic balancing gift last year, and so this year she’s paying it forward, moving three skeins of beautiful Mirasol Kacha (DK weight, 60% merino, 25% suri alpaca and 15% silk – 90m per skein) from her house to the home of Jen G.

Dana had a lovely thought, she’s got patterns she designed that she can pass on, and so a copy of her Family Tree Scarf and Family Tree Cowl will land in the inbox of Jessica L.

A very nice little surprise, and I think the idea of accessories where your family members are represented by their birthstone colours is pretty cool.

Finally, the very generous Melissa B has a skein of Plucky Knitter Peep Toes,

and she’ll be mailing it off to Elizabeth M and I hope they’re delighted with it.

There! There’s much more to come in a few days, and thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who’s donated anything at all.  You’re amazing and I’m inspired by you.

If you missed the post on how this all works, and you’d like to catch up, take a look here – and if you think you’re one of the nice knitters who got picked today, check your inbox. I’ve emailed you all.

1. I went for a bike ride this morning. A quick 15km, just to get a hill or two in. (I struggle with hills. I have to practice.)  It’s still so cold out – but I’m trying not to complain, on account of how much better this is than the frozen wasteland we’ve been in until now. At least it’s not snowing.  Still, I don’t remember having to bundle up this way by this time last year.

2. The spinning (the other kind) is going pretty well.  This roving is cotswald from Nistock Farms, and it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, but I love it.  Cotswold is a rare breed, and delicious to spin, but it doesn’t make yarn that’s super soft and bouncy. Instead it’s strong, lustrous and… well. You don’t wear it next to your skin. That’s all.

3. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your generosity supporting us all for the bike ride. We’re blown away.  I know that by now I should know that this is just the kind of community that we have, and that this is the way knitters are, but it never stops surprising me. It’s just… unbelievable.

4. In the first of many draws, I pulled a name, and my very pretty Fiber Optic handspun merino/silk yarn will be flying off to live with Marcia K, and I hope that she loves it as much as I do.

I can’t wait to see what she makes from it.  Thanks Marcia!

5. There’s so many wonderful Karmic Balancing Gifts coming in, I’ll totally have to give some away tomorrow.

6. Guess what?

Yup! She’s got it all worked out, and Samantha is in! Her little pledge page is here, and she’s raring to go. (And yes, her hair has a fair bit of wild pink in it. To paraphrase Barbara Coloroso, it’s not life threatening, morally threatening or unhealthy. Vive la difference!  By the way, her book  Kids Are Worth It! : Giving Your Child The Gift Of Inner Discipline(together with How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk) are pretty much responsible for the fact that I have never dropped even one of my kids off at the edge of a grizzly bear infested forest at -30 and said “good luck, you jerk.”)

7. I think if all goes well, I’ll finish my latest Colour Affection tonight.

I think that will probably change the weather – it seems to enjoy nothing more than making you look silly in an accessory. I knit this to match my coat, so really, finishing it should make the coat obsolete, right?

8. Thanks again for the donations. You guys are the best – and I tell it to anyone who will listen. You make the ten years I’ve been writing this blog all worth it, everyday.

I’m pretty sure that I burned out on the crochet.  I was feeling pretty good about it – Lucy left a comment saying that it takes her about 4 minutes to do a hole (I like to think that she’s not weaving in the ends) and instead of that being demoralizing, I was galvanized. I know it’s taking me 10 minutes longer per hole, but do you see what it means? It means there’s room for improvement, so II sat down, turned on my timer, went as fast as I could (turning things into a sport is sometimes distractingly fun) and when I was done I looked at the timer. 13 minutes. STILL 13 minutes.  Before I could think something foul about Lucy (which is totally not fair, she’s lovely – it’s not her fault she’s annoyingly skilled) I decided to put it down. Walk away. I’ll look at it later or tomorrow or maybe I’m totally not thinking through how unique and beautiful this scarf could be with one only one end done.  Eh? Think of that?

In the meantime, it’s Tuesday, and I made a vow to spin this Tuesday, and most of them between now and the rally, because I’d like to come up with prizes for Karmic Balancing Gifts this year, and I think they could be my handspun, if I can keep up the pace.

In case you weren’t around last year (or lots of years before that) when I fundraise, I give out Karmic Balancing Gifts. If you contribute, your name goes in for a draw (if you want it to)  and you might get something nice. I know some people would call these prizes, but I know for a fact that you guys donate because you’re awesome, not because you might get a prize and that means that these little presents are just that. Gifts – you do something nice, and then something nice happens to you, you get a warm and lovely glow, knowing that because you’re you the world is a better place, and then whammo – maybe a little yarn shows up.

The year before last I knit a few things and spun a few things, and I auctioned them off. This raised a ton of money for the Bike Rally. I did hear back from a few of you that you wished that this stuff hadn’t gone to the highest bidder, that you wished that you had a chance to get my handspun, or some beautiful knitted thing even if you could only afford to donate $5, and you know what, those people were right. A $5 donation is just as worthy as any other, karma-wise, and the only thing that should matter is that you gave as much as you were able, so this year I’m going to (mostly) level the playing field, and I’m going to start by drawing the first name tomorrow. I spun this gorgeous Fiber Optic braid last year,

and I turned it into this beautiful gradient yarn.

I can’t guarantee the yardage, but it’s about 200 metres of very pretty fingering/dk yarn. It’s not perfect, because it was spun by me, but it is a thing to behold, and you can behold it in your very own house if I pick your name out of the hat.

How do you get your name in the hat? You donate to someone on our little team, and then after you do, you send an email to me (stephanie@yarnharlot.ca) with “enter me” in the subject line, and YOUR ADDRESS and NAME in the body.  (It’s a good idea to let me know in the email if you want to be considered for spinning gifts. It comes up.)

If you’re feeling the mojo, and you’d like to give a gift, send me an email with “good karma” in the subject line, and I’ll get back to you.  This year (to try and avoid how overwhelming this task was last year – you all are so generous I could barely manage, a delightful problem I’d like not to repeat) I’m going to have you mail your gift straight to the person who it’s intended for – so you’ll email me a picture and a description, and where you’re willing to mail to, and when I pull a name I’ll email you the particulars. That way we save on postage by the gift only making one trip, and things don’t get complicated at my house and post office, as I pick things up only to mail them off again. I don’t mind the work to do this, but I want to do it well.

How to donate? That’s the easy part. You think about what you can afford to give, and then you donate it to someone on our little team of friends and family willing to get on their bikes and ride 600+ kilometres, Toronto to Montreal. The team’s in flux right now, not everyone is ready to start their fundraising (you wouldn’t believe how hard it is for a young person to make this commitment. This is a commitment that’s expensive every way you can think of it. Time. Money. Energy. The spirit is willing, but the realities suck)  so for today I’m going to link you to the part of the family team that’s ready.

Stephanie (that’s me. I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.)

Jen (she was born ready)

Ken (he’s the reason that we have to be ready at all. Instigator.)

Amanda (My eldest daughter, who’s not sure she’s ready but is going anyway)

Pato (our “adopted” son –  so ready he’s cheerful about it.)

Knitters, all of us.  (Although really, Amanda and Pato would tell you they only knit in emergencies.)  Make a donation if you’re able, send an email (you don’t have to forward the receipt or tell us how much it was for. That’s your business) and know that our gratitude is wide and tall and gives us almost as much joy as the look on the organizers faces as they try to reconcile knitters with what’s happening to the totals – it freaks them out every time.

Now, I’m off to cuddle up with my wheel and get another handspun gift ready.

Anybody like seaglass green?

Apparently not the cat.

She’ll make sure I pull a name tomorrow. She’s very stern.

PS. It’s been about 300 days since I fell off my bike. You have no idea how happy that makes me, even though it does wreck my mum’s brilliant but slightly cruel idea of having me solicit donations per bruise.