Absorbing Knits

Whee! Weee! Wii!

2008-08-16T14:36:00.005-03:00

My friend Nat's ex is moving out, and they were getting rid of their Wii... so DanDan and I jumped at the chance and bought ourselves a Wii for when we move out together. I checked on Futureshop.ca, and a Wii system costs 270$. We got ours for 200$, and it came with a few extra things. I didn't have time to check what was in the box yet. We'll probably set it up later this week.

On another note, me and DanDan are quitting our jobs at the call center. It was tough last year when I was working on my thesis, and this year, with my masters, it's not gonna be any easier. It's ok though, I get payed to study for my masters.

I also ordered 1.1 kg of undyed roving from funwithyarn.com. To be exact, this is what I bought. 5 balls of it, and it came last night. I can't wait to start needlefelting with it. I've got a few ideas already lined up. I'll have to dye it though... that part makes me nervous. I have dyes and a whole lot of undyed wool/roving.... I'm just scared to waste some or to not dye enough.

holy crap an update!

2008-08-13T23:55:00.004-03:00

Holy crap. I've been busy. For a while, I had three jobs.

There was the call center.
Then I got a grant/job at university. It's a grant, but they pay you to do research for a prof.... so it's like a job. It's cool though, I'm getting this awesome head start on my masters, which I'll be starting in September.
Then there was the knitting classes over at Cricket Cove, which went well. Three students, two of which had already knitted before and wanted to learn again or wanted to learn more.

Ok, so as promised, here's pics of my hoard over at London-Wul :

Kid Merino & silk, which got transformed into :

And I got some mohair... 500 grams I think. So soft.

And my friend Nat was ogling this fine piece of wool ass:

After a bit of contemplation, she decided that she wasn't going to get it. That's when I sprung up and snatched it. It gets better:

5$! So I got it. I don't know why, I'm really gravitating towards undyed wool lately....
The trip to London-Wul cost about 75$. Ouch. Oh well... that was my first time buying real nice wool, and not crappy cheap acrylic.

I've also been listening to a lot of Weird Al lately.
More to come!

A couple weeks of fun and some awesome news

2008-05-15T21:45:00.006-03:00

So I had some fun these last few weeks. We went bowling with some friends. Though really dorky, it's good fun, and everyone looks funny in those weird lookin' shoes.

We also went to Val's new appartment last night. Her cat started drinking in our glass and I could not resist taking a few pictures. She could not reach the water in the glass, so she would dip her paw in in and lick her paw.

I also went to Cricket Cove and London-Wul and bought some yarn (pictures next post). I had put down my name to teach classes at Cricket Cove a long time ago and the lady there said to bring something in to show her and she'll see if I can teach. I didn't know what to bring for the longest time. So yesterday I decided I'd jut bring anything, so I brought my pinstripe scarf and a striped purse that I made to show her. She liked it and told the owner, and now they want me to teach a class during the summer! Yay! And I also get 20% off there while I give classes. Another yay!

A crash course in spectroscopy and a kniting project planned

2008-05-12T11:33:00.004-03:00

When you heat up an element enough, the electrons in that element get excited and skip to another level of evergy. When that element relaxes, it emits a light that is equivalent to the amount of energy absorbed. This is what spectroscopy is based on, which is the quantification of certain atoms by the measuring of light. Also note that specific atoms absorb lights with a specific wavelength.

Whew! Now that that's over with, my future knitting project will make more sense.

I'm going to make a scarf of an emission spectrum. That means it's going to be all the wavelengths, but you'll only see the ones that are emitted from the atom I choose. Here's an example:

The first two are the ones that really interest me. They're the emission spectras of hydrogen (H) and of mercury (Hg).

I plan to measure how long I want to make the scarf, calculate how many stitches per wavelength, and make a "to-scale" atomic emission scarf with the right colors at the right position. Of course, I'm going to show this to all the other chem students and my profs when I'm done!

Custom yarn = long tough decisions

2008-04-28T22:14:00.008-03:00

So me and DanDan (my girlfriend Danielle) just came back from a road trip to Montreal. My goal in Montreal was to find this yarn store called "La Bobineuse de Laine". We walked up St-Denis from Ste-Catherine all the way to Ave Mont-Royal. We took a bus and when we saw that the addresses were gettin close, we walked. We eventually found it though. It was a little shop full of bins of various strands of different fibres. Took mme a while to figure out that you picked a number of strands and they spin it to form your own yarn. After like 45 minutes of deciding, I eventually picked out a mix of acrylic of 4 black strands and 2 green strands for 1/2 a pound.
They spun it right in front of me on a little cardboard cone (which is awesome!)

LOOKIT!!!

DanDan got some too. Hers was pre-spun as a display. It matches her hair. She's planning of making a shawl with it.

If ever you're in Montreal, their address is 2270 Ave Mont-Royal East. Go there if you have the chance.

Nerd + knitting = nerdy knitting

2008-04-26T21:44:00.000-03:00

Hi! I'm Chris.
If you don't know it yet, I'm a bigtime science nerd. I'm actually graduating from a bachelors in sciences specializing in chemistry next month. I've been knitting for about 3 years now (though I'd say it's more like 2 years, since one year was pretty much just doing garter stitch). I've also been crocheting for about two years now too. I'll share some projects, ideas and babble about knitting here. I'll probably ramble on about chemistry or something too, but you can skip that part if you'd like.

On with the knitting...