Moved!

Hey Guys!
I've moved!! Come on over and check out my new home www.celticcaston.com
Sockies is waiting!!!

Big ole 24!!

Moose says i'm an oldy mc old old today.
NO way! I'm not old yet!
Mum and dad came down sunday and brought me a yummy ice cream cake! YUMMMM!!!
Moose's family came down last night and took us out for dinner....
and today.... today I get to go to work :(
BOOOOO!!!!

Working till close on your birthday should be a big no no but what can ya do.
I like low key birthday's anyway.

I'm sure you're all wondering what I looked like when I was a wee gaffer.

Nothing but cuteness coming at ya! Thats me and my bro *he will soooo kill me when he see this* I'm even sporting my mum's handknit superted sweater!!!

Off to work I go! Someone eat some cake for me while I'm at work.

Ola!

I know I know, where have a been all week right????
Well it was my second week of vacation and I've been enjoying it to the fullest. I've been knitting of course :)
I was working feverishly all week hoping to get a sweater I was working on finished in time for church this morning but by saturday afternoon I realized it just wasn't going to happen. I made the sleeves longer than the original pattern ending up needing to order another ball of yarn NUTS!! Oh well it will be done soon enough.
I know you're all shouting "Never mind the knitting what about Cuba??????"
Well Cuba was good, alot of mixed reviews and emotions but I definately wouldn't have changed going for the world, no matter how bad the food was *insert throwing up face here*
I don't know if I'll be able to get all of our vacation stories out in one post but we'll see how it goes.
First off I'm sure you're all aware now of my ability to vomit with pretty much any motion... :) Well guess what??? I DIDN'T PUKE!!!!! You don't know how awesome that is, I even ate food before and during the flights and still felt fine. My secret was a new medication recommended to me by the pharmacist, its called Bonamine. It did make me sleeping but I didn't care, it was a long flight home. So.... on to Cuba.
Cuba is a very poor country, and you're all saying yeah we know that but when I say poor I mean REALLY poor!!!
Don't get me wrong, everyone has food to eat and a place to live but thats it, all bare minimum. Some of the house were just tin walls and a tin roof propped up. It was absolutely awful the conditions these people were living in. Then there are all these people coming to the resorts, drinking their faces off and not moving their butts from the resorts. Unless you actually got off the resort you would have had NO idea of the poverty. Yes our tour operator said its a very poor country but to wasn't until we rented Moped's and went out on our own that we came across it all. 90% of our week there was spent touring the areas on our own and giving away the things we had brought for them. I have never seen anyone so grateful for a simple bar of soap. The things we take advantage for in this country is unbelievable.
On our last day there we rented a moped and searched for some people to unload the last of our gifts too. So we're out in the middle of no where driving down this *highway* (more like a normal road) and Moose says we probably should turn around, we don't want to run out of gas. Around we go and *i'm sure you know whats coming* yup we run out of gas..................... Couldn't happen to anyone else but us. Somehow though every bad thing that happens to us turns into a blessing. So there just so happens to be a "farm" of sorts across the road from where we were stranded. When i say farm I mean a run down house with a few goats and chickens outside. We go in and no say "No Gas!" We were well out of Varadero so the chance that someone speaks english is very minimal. One of the girls understood Gas and said ahhhh gasonlina. I will definately remember that word. It just so happens they had a car. Now this car was most likely something that had been passed down from generation to generation, a 1950's car. The guy ciphened out gas from his own car and gave it to us, not expecting anything in return. I can't get over the generosity of these people that have absolutely nothing to their name and yet they are willing to give whatever they have to complete strangers. If only the whole world worked like that, we wouldn't have the poverty that exists in these countries today. So before leaving we unloaded what we had left to give out. There were about 3 generations of the family there. One lady was sooo excited to get soap and deoderant that she was waving it at her family inside and smelling it.
We decided after our trip that we won't be going back to an all inclusive again. Moose can't sit still for two minutes so there definately has to be lots of things to do. The food wasn't too hot, we of course knew it wasn't going to be very good before we arrived and we did find something to eat everyday but a week of fries and pizza for lunch and dinner was just too much. The weirdest thing was there was NO MILK! Not one drop of pasturized milk on that island. The only thing we could find was powdered and condensed milk. How in the world can you live without milk?? Let me tell you I craved that stuff from the day I got there until we left.
Well I think I've babbled enough for today, i hope to have all my pics in a folder for you by the next post to browse through. In the meantime I leave you with one of my favourite moments of the trip.
That is the first time I've seen a real camel before. I just went over to ask the man if I could pet them and take a picture but before I knew it he had lifted me up onto its neck and gave Moose the camera to take a picture. Oh Miseur Camel you were oh so cute.

Adios Amigos!

Well the time has come!
I'm just eating breakfast and then we're off to the airport. Have a great week everyone and I see ya in a week.

Blanket of Hope

Hi All! Just a quick post before I go to bed.
Rebekah has started a blanket project for Sonya's husband. They just found out he has Lymphoma, a form of cancer. Go on over to Rebekah's blog and read more about the project.
Its called Blanket of Hope and she is asking for support of fellow knitters to aid her in knitting a square or two.

Now I'm gonna be gone for a whole week, and i'm sure somewhere in that WHOLE WEEK you could all squeeze a little knitting in for a good cause. The squares *or shapes* I should say can be any size,shape or colour just as long as they come from the heart.
So please, take a few minutes next week and help us out!

3 more shifts till Vacay!!!

*insert crazy happy dance*
3 more shifts, ohhhhh yeahhhh baby 3 more shifts and I'm outta there for 2 whole weeks!!!!!
I'm just a little excited. Its been a year and a half with no vacation so this is wellllllll overdue!

Lots has been going on here at CelticCastOn. Trying to finish up the bathroom before we leave, packing and putting together some packages for Cuban's. Add on top of that normal work, giving some kitty love and Phew! we definately need a vacation.
The bathroom is coming along, I have my doubts as to whether EVERYTHING will be finished before we leave. Moose has pretty much done everything in the bathroom by himself due to his shifts and days off. Usually I am the painter but when I came home from work last week he had it primed and painted so there goes my job. The rest really was plumbing, which I would be absolutely no help with. I did, however, get all the trim for the 4 rooms we will be redoing done, its alot of door casings and trim let me tell ya. Here's a shot of the shower installed.



On the knitting front everything is basically at a stand still. There's just no time to knit this week. The Tweedy Aran Cardi has been put in the WIP basket until we come back and not a stitch has been knit since last week.
I have however been getting some knitting ready for Cuba. The only knitting i'm taking is a sock project. I doubt I'll get any other knitting done during the week but the sock should be enough to fulfill my knitting craving.
A new toy arrived on Monday that i've been *not so patiently* awaiting. Its a walnut yarn swift handmade by the folks at Knitting Notions.

I first found out about these when Heidi had one on her blog and was receiving one from her fab hubby for her anniversary present. I've been saying for a swift for a while but hadn't found one that I was in LOVE with. I was set on getting an umbrella swift until I saw this swift and read the benefits of having a table top one.

1) Its dark walnut, I loooooove dark wood

2) It has many dowel holes on each arm for different size skeins to fit onto. Also great if your yarn shrinks a bit.

3) It takes seconds to put it together and take it apart. No need to worry about this big umbrella and where to store it.

4) It comes with a fabulous bag to keep all the parts together and store.

5) Its handfinished! They use tung oil and linseed oil and a layer of paste wax on top. Its soooo silky smooth, no need to worry about your yarn snagging.

I could go on! I Immediately ripped into the box when it can and gave it a spin. Its friggin fabulous!!! I kept saying LOOK MOOSE!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!! I LOVE IT!!

It was so quick, in a matter of minutes I had a freshly wound ball ready for a little trip to Cuba.

* Yarn is Scouts Appletini!*

Thanks for all your suggestions on patterns. I love all that you have suggested but didn't think they would work well with the yarn I chose from my stash. Were Appletini is varigated I didn't want to do anything lacey or with alot of pattern for fear of not being able to see the pattern too well. I did find a pattern that I think will work with the yarn. Its Sarah's free pattern called Honey of a hurricane socks. I seems easy enough so here's hoping!!

Must go get ready for work *sigh* ohhhh i soo want to cast on for those!!

Winter wonderland

So I realized in my last post that I didn't tell you all where we are going.....
There will definately be alot of these there...
And I might also be able to pick up a few moves from this....
Thats right ya'll we're going to CUBA!!! I'm pretty excited! I've wanted to go to Cuba for a couple of years now and we are finally getting the chance to go. I can't wait to lay on that beach and not have to think about work or how cold it is.
Its actually nice out this morning, we got a big chunk of snow last night while I had a little nap by the fire :)
I was amazed when I went out to take this picture this morning how mild it was out. Now thats what i'm talking about. I could handle tons of snow if it was just mild out and not so frigid.

So Project Spectrum started yesterday and you'll remember me saying I have nothing in those colours to knit with and I didn't want to stray from my tweedy aran cardi. Well after yesterday's post it clicked and I remembered the sweater I had been DYING to make but didn't want to stop knitting the tweed. Well GUESS what colour the yarn is?????? It MUST be fate hehehe
Grey AND blue in the one yarn, how sweet is that. Now I didn't have the pattern book for the sweater, I did that on purpose so that I wouldn't start it before I had finished the current project but yesterday I went ahead and ordered it. Hopefully it will arrive before next weekend when we leave and I could cast on and take a sleeve with me. I also need to figure out what sock project I want to take with me. I don't want to do just a plain sock but I also don't want to have to look at a pattern every two seconds while i'm there. Any suggestions!

Sooo the mouse story...... yeah I heard the mouse in the wall again. Apparently Moose got a mouse, but not the RIGHT mouse, or maybe there were two of them. Who knows! So we'll have to see if we can locate the other one. Knowing my luck we'll come back and they will be all settled in the house, sprawled out on the couch infront of the fire or something!

Off to get some things done!

Sheet Rock City

Moose has been working up a storm on the soon to be bathroom downstairs. Sheetrock and crack filling is done, next will be sanding and then slapping some paint on there.
Moose plans on getting it done before we leave..... I don't know that it can be done but we will see. Where *you ask* has Sock been while all this has been going on???

* This sheetrock stuff's for the birds!!! I think its about time for my 20th nap of the day.*

So I was talking to Moose just after I got home from work tonight.

Moose: Sooo I was on your blog today!

Me : Where ya??

Moose: Yeah but I don't think I know how to work it right cause I could only get last weeks post to come up..... or was that your last post??

Me : Yeah I think that was my last one

Moose: Geez what kind of blogger are you??? LAST WEEK???

Way to make me feel guilty :( I've been meaning to post for days but it just hasn't happened. So here's the post !

Speaking of Moose. He has this facination of buying things in bulk. Now I know you're probably saying yeah bulks good. Buy bulk cereal so you don't have to buy a teeny weeny box every two days but Moose's bulk purchases are jsut plain WEIRD. I come home the other day, Moose had picked up a few things, butter was something we needed but it wasn't the NORMAL container of butter NOOOOOOO it was a MASSIVE ,will take us a year to use it all tub of butter. He also picked up some dishwasher powder..... a mammoth PAIL of dishwasher powder and I'm not even going to go into the shampoo jug he brought home one day. He thinks its the greatest thing in the world and looks sooo smug when he finds a new bulk purchase. PLEASE tell me I'm not alone in my thoughts of CRAZINESS!!!!

For weeks now I've been telling Moose there was a mouse in the wall in the basement. He laughed and told me there can't be a mouse in the way cause its cement and there would be nowhere for him to get in. Fair enough but there was SOMETHING in that wall. Sock and I would be sitting at the computer and I'd hear it walking along behind the plastic vapour barrier. Even Sock heard it and continued to stare at the wall. All this happened of course while moose wasn't here. Of the course of the next couple of weeks, i'd hear the mouse in different places and on different walls. Everytime I heard it I'd let moose know I'd heard the mouse again, got laughed at and told there wasn't a mouse in the wall. By the weekend I was tired of telling him there was a mouse and just accepted it. Monday evening I called Moose before I got home from work and he said I caught the mouse in the wall today. My reply was YOU DID!!!! I TOOOOOLLLLLD YOU THERE WAS A MOUSE! WHO WAS RIGHT???? WHO WAS RIGHT????? To which he replied You and Sock were right. lol I love it when i'm right. Mr. Mouse is now in heaven, bless his little heart, I told him he should have taken him over to the pit and let him off there but it was too late by the time I talked to him.

I'm loving having my sunday's off. The past few weekends I've been able to go to church, hang with moose and get lots of knitting done. I finished sleeve two sunday and started one of the front's this week. As you can see not much has progressed this week so far but I'm hoping to get some good progress on the weeekend.
Project Spectrum starts tomorrow. I didn't sign up for this one. Last PS I always ended up not having the colours and not being finished projects before the next colour starts so this time if I happen to be knitting the same colour as that month,great, if not then i'll continue with what I"m doing. I have to keep it down to the two projects remember!

knitting bags and mail!

In two weeks and four days I'm going on VACATION!!!!!!
I'm finally using my vacation time and going away. I'd stand on my head for two weeks straight if it mean't getting a break from work.
Soooo in honour of going away, it was of course time to find a knitting /carry on bag. I wanted a bag that was big enough to carry a knitting project and my essentials but not too big that it was heavy and hard to lug around. I also wanted something in the way of a messenger bag to take with me when we are out, handbags while on vacation just aren't practical for me. I need something I can throw over my head and forget about. I had looked at the messenger knitting bags on Scout's Swag but i really don't have a hundred bucks to shell out on a bag right now.*more on that later* So after a little search in the mall and one patient...... or not so patient Moose I found the bag I was looking for. Its green, its the perfect size and the strap is easily converted to a messenger style or hand bag and did I mention its GREEN????? What could be better???

I also found a cute little notions holder in the clearance section at zellers. Its actually a five star pencil case but the cool thing about it is that it stands upright. All your notions, pens, highlighters, stitch markers fit inside, the top half zips open and it still stands upright beside you on the table while you work. And the best part ITS GREEN!

My Anniversary present arrived today! If you'll remember I was getting Moose sock blockers.
Here they are in all their glory! I of course had to pop a sock on for show. These may be the ladies small but when I put the sock on the block it made my sock look huge!

The first sleeve is complete! Now I get to do it ALL OVER AGAIN! *throws confetti*

We are back at the reno's again on the house. We have some flooring, painting, trim in two rooms, and transforming another room into a bathroom before we can put it up for sale. Its going to be alot of work in the next month or two but it will all be worth it :)

chugging along in the cold!

I saw the cutest picture on a blog today, wanna see??? CUTENESS
Thats Gangles, one of Kristi's twin boys! If you'll remember there was a virtual baby shower for Kristi and tons of people knit an item or two for the wee baabies. So i'm checking bloglines and click on Kristi's blog and BAM! There is the cutest little baby wearing a sweater I knit for him. That picture says it all! Its soo exciting to see your own handknits on someone else. I had the biggest grin the whole time I was reading her post. Thank you Kristi for taking the time to photograph and post gangles! You made my day!

So today at work I had a 2 x 4 entire grid filled with product fall on my thumb at work. Talk about huuuuuurt! Thankfully it wasn't broken, just have a pulsing thumb and a big purple blood blister right by my cuticle. It definately hurt when it dropped but all I could think about was, if its broken I hope they only cast my thumb that way I can still knit, cause if they cast my hand I'll go CRAZY!

Saturday I cast on for my first sleeve of the tweedy aran cardi. Its k1 p1 with a cable going up the middle. I must admit I like k1 p1, but this sleeve just doesn't want to end. I'm not even up to the arm pit and i'm banging my head against the wall. I keep thinking in the back of my mind, "And there's still ANOTHER ONE to go" I'm going to work on it tonight and try to get some more done tomorrow so I'm crossing my fingers that I will have it done in the next few days.

We've been having some fun with Sock :) Now I read blogs with cats wearing preemie hats, and bibs and socks and you name it they're wearing it. Not this cat, if you even THINK about putting something on her she's gone. Last night however Moose slipped a chocolate wrapper on her head without her knowing *hehe*
*Hi Mum!! Why do you have the camera out, i'm just sitting on dad??*

She caught on to what we were up to when we put another one up there.
* oh yeah..... funny guy huh! Hurry up take the picture, then GET THIS OFF MY HEAD!!!*

brrrrrr!!!

Don't make me go outside plllllllease!!!
Thats what I was saying yesterday morning before work! -38 with the wind chill in definately a stay at home and knit day!!! But noooooo work it was. I guess I can be at least happy that we have snow. It started on our way to St.Hubert on monday and by the time we were coming home it was inches deep everywhere. The snow on the railing will give you some indication.

St. Hubert was fabulous! We ate till we were full, and I ate everything on all three plates (oink oink) I may be little but I sure know how to eat my food :)
On the way to St.Hubert I took along my finished Dulaan knits to sew up. I'd been procrastinating doing it so the drive was the perfect time. Here's on of the hats I made. I have a total of 7 knits now that are complete and I still have a few more still to do.

For our anniversary we decided to just do dinner and a small give, seeing hows its so close to christmas and then there is my birthday next month too :) So THIS is what is winging its way to me as we speak! Yippee Moose blockers from my Moose :)

Speaking of Moose, I always tease him when Sockies on him that he LOVES her. His reply is always I LIKE her but I don't LOVE her. Well I have photographic evidence and Sock will agree that Moose is definatley smitten with old Sock.
Awwww Bonding time :) Whenever or where ever Moose sits she runs to jump up and sit on him awww they're best buds!
*pppeewww!! Dad you have some major cat breath there! Do you mind!!*

Two Years!!

Two years ago today I said I DO to this handsome Devil!!!
These two years and been the best two years in my life..... well those and the previous 5 with Moose :) Its hard to believe two years have come and gone already but I wouldn't have changed a minute!

We are off to St. Hubert some time today to feed our faces and celebrate!

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it??? We actually are getting snow?? I flicked to the weather channel last night and tomy surprise discovered we were in a winter storm warning! YAY!!!!
We are supposed to get 5-15 cm of snow and then its supposed to turn to rain.... we shall see how much we actually DO get. Here's a picture I just took a few moments ago. SNOW!!!! MORE SNOW!!!
EDITED TO ADD: Its all gone, every last drop washed away by the rain :( COME BACK SNOW!
As for the Tweedy Aran Cardi, I'm still chugging. Yesterday I thought I'd have the back done and be started on the front..... that didn't happen so I figured I'd get it done this morning...... that didn't happen. This back is taking FOREVER!!!! I've got about 2 more inches to go before I can bind off. At this rate its gonna take forever!!! MUST STICK TO ONE PROJECT!!!

randomness

I just made these super cute multi coloured sheep for a blogless Sherry who's a new knitter. She liked all the colours so thought why the heck not make one of each. I think they are pretty darn cute, don't you think?? Sherry is a brand new knitter and only on her third project but i'm excited to send these off to her in hopes of making her knitting life that little bit easier! Enjoy Sherry!
Just the other day I order some Noro Kochoran from Busy Bee. They have a great sale on right now that you should definately check out. Cheaps on the net for Kochoran. She even gave me free shipping to Canada! Can't get any better than that!!! Lolly has recently knit THIS sweater. As soon as I saw the pattern for it I fell in looooooove. When I found the great deal at Busy Bee I had to order the yarn and make it. So Kochoran number 10 is on its way to me. I must contain myself from starting it though until I finish my Tweedy Aran Cardi! Oohhhh but the temptation! I better get a crack on with that cardi!

If you love felted bags you've gotta check out Heidi's blog. Heidi and I go to the same church. I suspected her as a knitting because I had noticed her carrying felted bags before. Just before christmas I found her blog and was delighted to find she was indeed a knitter, and not just any old knitter. Heidi taught herslef to knit only a few months ago and already she's making fantastic felted bags and selling them on her etsy shop. Check it out. Not only does she knit and felt them but she them embroiders them with some fantastic designs! Talented I tell ya!

We're off four wheeling today! I hope I have time later to get some knitting in.

Back to the Tweed.

And we're off to the races on our 2007 knits! I'd put aside my tweed because I had become seriously frustrated before christmas but with three months left in the KAL and nothing to show I figured I'd better buck up and start knitting. The pattern wasn't matching up with the previous rows when I knit before and even with ripping and redoing I still couldn't get it right. Then the thought came into my head that I just need to use stitch markers DUH! I only make and sell the things :) Anyway I'm on the right track now and I'm boogin right along. There are 8 different patterns in one row so its slow going but I'm almost finished two diamond and before christmas I didn't have a diamond even started! The picture is of the back piece, I'm about 9 inchs along and if I didn't have to go to dang work tonight it might be another 9 :)

If you have something tweedy in your stash you'd like to use up, come on over and join the KAL, we'd love to see what your knitting.

There are several different projects I would like to dig into but I'm going to force myself to be a good knitter this year and only have two things on the needles at once. One being a sock and the other my main project. I will not start anything else until I get the main project done or finish the sock and then I can start another.
As you can see None of my WIP's that I was SUPPOSEDLY going to finish up before christmas got done so they will stay right where they are for the time being. I'm thinking about knitting the main project and then go back to an ufo and finish that before I start a new one but we'll see. There are sooo many beautiful patterns perking up here there and everywhere its going to be hard to just be knitting one at once.

I'm planning on making some larger items for myself this year. The largest thing I did last year was my OSW. I think a few sweaters are long overdue in the Celtic household.
Until next time.... Tweed ya later!

Destashing!

I've cleaned up all my stash, organzied, rebagged and removed some things I just won't ever use.
So to start off the new year I'm offering up my old stash to my fellow readers. I have patterns and yarn in my stash that I just won't ever use. If you see something you like make me an offer, I'm up for trades too. Let me know if something peaks your interest and we can work something out!
Happy New Year everyone!

Edited to add: I have several balls of each yarn, about 10 balls of the black. As if your interested and I'll give you the info.