There are organizations that accept hats, toys, scarves, blankets, and socks. Make sure to check the specific charity you wish to support for any guidelines (type of yarn, whether it should be knit in the round, etc). If you don’t have time to knit, you can also donate yarn or money to many organizations.

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MY LOVELIES! I have missed you. This past weekend we had our annual homecoming celebrations here at Queen’s University, and this time we managed to avoid flipping over a car in our excitement. I spent the weekend eating pancakes, drinking Glenlivet and socializing, which prevented me from knitting, blogging and studying. Fortunately, I managed to do lots of things this morning that I can now tell you about.

1. I found this delectable rustic scarf pattern done in basket and seed stitch. I have a weakness for seed stitch, as well as a weakness for items that don’t require blocking, so this scarf is les genoux de l’abeille (the bee’s knees).
2. I finally bought those 9 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca & Silk for my mom’s sweater. I was hesitating for a while, acting the penny-pincher and trying to find a sale, and my procrastination actually worked this time! I managed to find a store that charges $9 instead of $11 per ball, offers 10% if you sign up for their newsletter and free shipping over $75, which means that it cost me $72.90 for the alpaca & silk. A $4 ball of Plymouth Suri Yarn (55% Suri Alpaca / 45% Extrafine Merino) put me over the $75 threshold, which means I saved at least $40 in total. Yay! This is going to be the best sweater ever.
3. I’ve been working on a little somethin’ somethin’ that I’ll finally get to talking about today or tomorrow, as soon as I finalize all the details. I’m really really excited about it! Keep your Bloglines pointed to this blog for future details.

There are some other wacky ones, but I like these.

This is just a reminder that submissions to the Yarnival! Blog Carnival are due by September 15th.

Submit what you think represents your best or most interesting work for the past month, and then come back on September 29th to see the top submissions. Your submission can be about anything, but it must be knitting-related. (Spinning and dyeing is good, too). If you don’t know what Yarnival! is, here’s some more information about it.

I, for one, plan to be the first person to reveal this fantastic leap forward in fashion engineering (fashineering): biodegradable knitted fabrics made from materials like rice straw, wheat gluten, and chicken feathers.

Every year, farms worldwide produce millions of tons of agricultural waste, which includes wheat gluten, rice straw, and even chicken feathers. Now scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are turning this refuse into biodegradable fabrics as an alternative to the ubiquitous nylons and polyesters made from petroleum.

I think it would be neat if knitters could do the same with their ball remains that these folks at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are doing with agricultural waste. There are recycling programmes for batteries, electronic equipment, old fridges, and then of course less dangerous recyclable materials like paper and plastics and Kevin Bacon. Wouldn’t it be neat if there were programmes for recycling wool? They could be processed and respun into brand new balls and sold on the cheap to folks who need income. I’m sure hippies would pay for whatever garments they produced.

In knitting news, I’m a few inches down the leg of my second Jaywalker, and I’m starting a pair of Knucks for my cousin. They’ll be made from the red merino sweater I bought in this post with these fantastic embroidery tips. The yarn’s a bit tweedy; I love how warm and stretchy it is! This yarn may also become a pair of socks; I’m already eyeing Baudelaire.

I just came across a cool new blog with a cool recent post about crafting and politics and how, on her blog, never the twain shall meet. I try to avoid talking about politics on this blog because I think most of it has nothing to do with crafting and I don’t want to alienate all the cool folks who come by here on a regular basis. My other blog is more personal, and quite a bit more ends up there, so I don’t feel like the self-censorship is in any way suffocating.

Of course, there are some ways that politics can creep into knitting (many ways, actually), and it turns out that knitting has a vast political history. But aside from the few blog posts about gender definitions and “knitting for the troops,” there aren’t many blogs that combine knitting and politics. I’d like to see some. Not those from the US, that’s to be expected and (dare I say it) common. I’d prefer something in a foreign politick (Africa? Lebanon?), or possibly even Canadian.

Blogosphere, get to work!

A quick note, first, to people who have emailed me in the last little while: I am at home in Toronto, which means that I don’t have access to a mail server. Because I haven’t been able to log in to my web mail for the last year and this quirk continues, I won’t be able to send email until I get back on Sunday.

I visited the The Vintage Knit-Along today and found some neat patterns.

I wish I could knit these, but I find gloves too cold and the two sweaters are from the twenties. Clothes from the twenties don’t look good on curvy gals like moi. Maybe with some adjustments?

I’m planning for Christmas, already. I’ve already finished a ruffly pink mohair scarf for one of my cousins (picture to come once I take a picture in good light), and I’ve decided on what I’ll be knitting for all my other relatives. So with all this planning and knitting for others, a girl’s gotta be a little selfish every once in a while. I like this little wrappy cape thingy that I found via Fluid Motion. I want to knit myself a cape with a bit of a Dickensian feel in a deep burgundy colour. I think if I were to knit what I’m thinking of, it would be highly impractical and I probably wouldn’t wear it very often, but I don’t knit to wear, anyway. I think if I converted this to a flat pattern and put in a few buttons along the front, it would be a perfect Christmas cape. Capes, man. Who would ever think CAPES would be in again? Except possibly Bryan Singer.

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I’m keeping this as a list for myself and I figured some other Canadian folks could use this list, too. Here is a list of online knitting retailers that ship to Canada (as well as their Canadian shipping prices in US dollars).

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From now on, I’m going to knit all my socks toe up! I still like this sock, but next time I’ll make the following adjustments:

• Tighter leg – Even though I cut the stitch count down to 60 or so, it was still too loose. I think that might have been because of the ruffles I added at the top, so maybe it was okay. I definitely won’t be adding very many ruffles from now on.
• I prefer either a really long or really short stocking. Summer socks or winter socks; Canadians don’t really have a very substantial autumn or spring. So I could try this as an ankle sock, perhaps. I’ll have quite a bit left of this yarn, so hopefully I can squeeze an ankle sock out of it.
• No more kitchener!