Pengie Penguin

Not much to talk about, except my little penguin who has all his cross stitch done.

All he needs now is his backstitching and his french knot eyes and he'll be done!

Gotta love giveaways

Just a quick post to say that you should check out Stitchwraith's blog where she's having a blogivversary blowout and you can win one of two prizes (depending on where you live).

Why I love to Teach

When it comes to fibre crafts, I'm a teacher. I love to show people how to start a project, watch as they learn the steps, and see the joy of whatever craft they're doing take hold.

I've got two students right now, one for cross stitch, who is also now asking me to remind her how to cast on so she can make a cowl, and one for knitting.

They are both hooked now, with the cross stitcher planning on making ornaments for Christmas, and picking up the needles again to knit, and the knitter bringing some friends, one of whom would like to learn, to our next knit night on Friday.

It's just such a warm and fuzzy feeling to see people learn something new and find a love in it.

I also love taking pictures of first projects in progress. Those hands are so unsure right now, but as they go on they will be filled with muscle memory and pretty soon will be flying through projects!

In other news, the penguin is becoming more apparent.

The Stitching goes on

Good morning,

Not much to write about today, I've finished the body on my bulky sweater, have the toe done on my socks, need to get started on the herringbone pattern for them, and got the hat done on my penguin.

And have pictures of none of it. The husband took my iPod last night and didn't put it back in my purse.

Luckily, I have a stash of cute cat pictures to draw from, so have a picture of Peari being queen of the castle.

The Rules of the Wall of Shame

As with this blog, I've come to the realization that in order for me to actually go through the wall of shame and complete it, I must give myself guidelines. Therefore, the rules.

1. I am not allowed to buy yarn for any new project until everything on the wall of shame is completed or frogged. The exception to this is yarn for socks for my Grandpa. I can buy yarn if it is to finish a wall of shame project, because otherwise it would be redundant.

2. I am only allowed to work on one WoS project during the week. I must choose the project, put it in my bag, and that is it! I am not allowed to hopscotch around the projects because then I'll fall back into my usual trap and nothing will get done. Once a WoS project is off the needles (doesn't need to be blocked), I can then go to the pile and grab another one.

3. In addition to the WoS project, I am allowed to have 2 other projects on the go, the first is a simple project that doesn't require a pattern, because sometimes my laptop's dead, or I just can't focus on a difficult pattern. Having a pair of vanilla, or close to vanilla, socks on the needles will allow me to continue to knit no matte the circumstances. I'm also allowed to work on a single cross stitch pattern. I'm not going to have a million UFO's for cross stitch (yet). So I have to keep it to small, fun designs.

4. On the weekends I'm allowed to pick up this monstrosity and add to its bulk.

Peari decided to help me show off it's size.

This is a sock yarn blanket based off of Shelly Kang's blankie. It's going to be big enough to fit on my queen sized bed. It's currently at the proper width, but needs a lot more squares to reach it's proper height. This will take me a while, but is rather too bulky to take with me everywhere. So I'm going to work on it on Fridays at knit club, and then possibly on the weekends at home, if I'm at home. I'll do Monday blankie updates I think.

This past weekend I only added about 3 small squares, but I was teaching someone to knit, and I was only home for a couple of hours in the morning on Saturday and Sunday each, so cut me a little slack.

The current WoS project is this difficult to see pile of ribbing.

This started life as a baby blanket for a boy. I originally thought that the yarn was gold with lovely maroons and burgundies, but when I brought it out into real light I realized it was rather more pink and violet than what I thought, so not so good for a young lad. However, I had been smart enough to make it fairly wide, and folding it in half allowed it to become a sweater for me! I'm almost done with the body, then it's just a matter of knitting up the sleeves, and once again I'm a bit worries about the amount of yarn I have.

Are you noticing a theme?

My cross stitch project is the penguin card from The World of Cross Stitch magazine.

I started with the white and sand colours. I learned a while ago (the hard way) that when doing small projects like this, it's often a good idea to start with the lightest colours, or your whites get all muddled by the other colours. Right now it's fairly boring, but with luck I can get some more colour into it so the next time I show you it will be pretty.

So that's that, hopefully I can continue the FO brigade of the WoS and soon have some pretty stash acquisitions to show you.

Weekend Roundup

Good Morning!

Welcome to Fall, one of the best times of the year for knitters!

Today comes to you in a quick weekend round up because I have a new pretty that has caught my attention.

First up, I finished the Spring Thaw Shawl.

It's not blocked yet, I'll do a full post about it once it's done, but this is another Wall of Shame off the needles. I'll be talking about the wall of shame tomorrow, but for now, work on it continues!

I was down to the wire on this yarn again. I first had to rip out an entire repeat of the lace pattern, and even with that, once I got the edging finished, this was all I had left.

And picture with a helpful cat for scale.

I also picked up some reading material, which I'm not allowed to pick up until I finish the Yarn Harlot's book that I'm reading right now.

This is book two in the series, the first being The Name of the Star, an absolutely amazing young adult novel. This book was released in February, and my library doesn't have it available, and I couldn't wait, so with a few extra dollars in hand, I bought myself the hardcover. I can't wait to dive into this one, but as with crafty projects, I need to limit myself on which books I'm reading or I'll start 20 and finish maybe 1 of them.

In other news, I got a beautiful magazine for Cross Stitching:

I was looking through all the options my local book store had (and there were close to 10 different selections), but I have pretty high criteria. 

For example, if I can't see the patterns because it's cling wrapped, you'd best have good gifts, and a number of cute patterns on the cover. This one did, there's the little penguin card that I'm working on, a beautiful sampler (though I will use less neon colours), not to mention the kindle holder, the geisha, the hedgehogs... this one caught my interest. I'm not one for kitschy cross stitch, I like beautiful stuff I can put on the wall and it doesn't look like it was made a century ago.

So far I have over 50% of the charts in here that have either caught my attention or that I want to make RIGHT NOW! So this one is a success.

The unfortunate thing is that it is made in the UK, and I haven't been able to find shipping cost for subscriptions to Canada, but I'll just have to dig a bit deeper. 

Getting Ready for Fall

Fall for me is not just knitting and coloured leaves and cool air and wonderfulness.

Fall means that I'm starting to get busy, and after a very busy summer, that's not always something I'm looking forward to.

Fall also means that it's my birthday and Canadian Thanksgiving all in one weekend.

Fall means that I have my annual Trick or Canning event to organize.

Fall means that Christmas is coming and I have work events to organize and presents to knit and a company building and home to decorate and a charity dinner to help out with.

You can see why I start to get busy.

So to start off, Trick or Canning is a charity food drive I do every year. I love trick or treating, but I realize that I am much to old to go out and collect candy, and I don't have a child yet to drag around with me. So I decided that rather than asking for candy, I would ask for food for the food bank. The first year we went out, we had 7 people, hit 3 streets, and got 130 lbs of food. Last year, we had about 20 people, and also ran a food drive at my work, and hit up almost our entire subdivision, and we got 668 lbs of food.

This year we're aiming for 700 lbs.

I really want to spread this idea out around through all areas that have Halloween and trick or treating, and with that in mind, I have set up a Facebook page here, with the thought that I can give advice on how to start up your own Trick or Canning group, and see how much of a cumulative total of food we can gather across North America.

Thanksgiving in Canada is coming up in a couple of weeks, which means my birthday. Last year was a big number for me, so this year won't be near as big of a party, but it'll still be nice. My husband is always very good at making sure I have a good day.

Everything else is either work or friend related (including the Christmas charity dinner, which I just help out with rather than organize thank goodness), so I don't have to worry too much about it.

My favourite part of fall though?

I get to wear this again:

I love this jacket that I knit out of left over Doctor Who Scarf yarn with added black. It's probably my most worn knit object. I'm so glad the mornings are cool enough for me to pull this out again.

A finished Holden

The name of this shawl has made me smile since I started it, because I have a nephew named Holden, and he's what I've been thinking about while I've knit this.

So yesterday I got home and had exactly 30 minutes before having to head out to the symphony (side note, my husband knows the assistant conductor, but didn't realize that until he was introduced, pretty wicked cool!). So with that I decided to block out my Holden Shawlette (which I would almost call a shawl because it's big) and my Grandpa's socks.

The socks gave me a bit of a heart attack because when I pulled them out of the water it felt like they'd grown 10 times, but they seem to be fine this morning.

These are just regular toe up socks with a heel flap, the pattern can be found on wendyknits.net under her free patterns. I was expecting the water to have a lot more blue than it had, but at least I know they're mostly rinsed out. I can honestly say I probably won't use Sockittome again. It's lovely and soft, but it's a single ply loose spun yarn, and it split all over the place while I was knitting. The worst part was during the bind off of the second sock when I all of a sudden had the yarn completely separate. Luckily I was able to spit splice it back together, but still, it was a big moment of panic. 

This is very unfortunate because I love the colours in this yarn. I really don't think these would wear well on feet that walked around a lot, which is why they're perfect for Grandpa.

Anyway, on to the real reason you're here. Holden.

Here he is having a nice rest on the futon after he'd had his bath.

(I had to stand on a chest/coffee table we have in order to take this picture.)

And here he is on his first trip out of the house.

This was made out of Noro Kureyon Sock, which is another yarn that I love to hate. I love the colours, so long as there aren't any knots in it.

This would have been done quicker if I hadn't made so many rookie mistakes on the feather and fan area. I really enjoyed making this, and the long area of stocking stitch was perfect to show off the rainbow colours of the yarn, and the lace area was just enough to give a bit of interest without being muddled by the variegation.

It's nice and warm, and after a dip in the wool wash, it's softened up nicely and I think it will be a wonderful scarf/shawl for winter.

The Sock Groweth

Lame title I know, but it made me laugh when I thought of it.

I have 10 more rows to knit on my Grandpa's blue socks, and then the 10 rows of ribbing and the sewn cast off and they're done!

Usually that would me I could present them to him and he would put them on immediately (he's like that). Unfortunately, I noticed something interesting as I was knitting the latest dark blue patch, my fingers have become blue!

So I will have to wash these socks prior to giving them to Grandpa to make sure that his feet don't turn blue.

After I'm done this (which should be in about an hour), I will be starting to sew some embroidery floss into the spring thaw shawl so that I can pull it back and then put the edge on it.

I'm slowly working my way through some UFO's, we'll see what happens with other projects I find.

The future wall of shame

Looks like I'm going to be creating a wall of shame.

I spent 45 minutes last night going through every room in the house to grab anything yarny (be it actual yarn, UFO's, or yarny tools like needles and such) and got it to one central location. After I'd done that, the back part of my living room looked like this.

Which to some knitters will look like a baby stash as they go "how cute". The fact of the matter is, that I'm pretty sure I only have about 75-80% of the stash here, and this doesn't count my fabric and stuff. 

This is also only half of what I used to have, because I decided to get rid of all the acrylic I knew I wasn't going to touch. I did a yarny trade with a friend's Nana. She got my acrylic for blankets, and I got her rug hooking stuff, which is in the baskets by the window.

So, what my plan is, is to go through this pile of yarny goodness and separate and photograph any and all UFO's that are hidden within. I will then put them up on a wall of shame. The rules are as follows:

In order for me to be allowed to get new yarn for a new project (the only exception being socks for my Grandfather), I must have everything on the Wall of Shame either finished, or frogged. 

I think this is a fair challenge and that it's something I can stick to. I'm not going to say I can't cast on anything new, I can do new projects from stash yarn, and they won't end up on the wall of shame, so long as they are finished in a timely manner.

This is incentive enough, I believe, to get these projects finished or frogged, because my Queue on Ravelry continues to grow, and I just don't seem to have anything suitable for any of the patterns!

Almost done

Good morning, I hope you had a lovely weekend. I'm currently fighting a headache from bending over the Holden Shawl for 2 hours yesterday finishing the picot bind off.

All told I had a lovely weekend. Worked like crazy on Holden, in the company of my kitty and a book on the computer as seen here.

It's much more difficult to knit with a cat on your lap when they are very interested in what you're doing and want to see what the yarn tastes like, and help you with unraveling the ball, and generally getting in the way. Yet letter her sit on my lap was the lesser of two evils when considering what she was doing when she wasn't settled.

Yesterday we went to the local hobby shop and I was able to get all of the edging done, but it did take me over 2 hours from start to finish, after which I had the start of a killer headache. Getting down to the wire I was somewhat worried about the amount of yarn I had left. I though I had the yardage for it, but it was becoming a rather small ball as I was getting to the end. In fact, this is all I had left at the end of it all.

I think my sweat and fears were justified, especially since I was adding two stitches to every two that came off the needles.

Now I just have to block this baby and she'll be done. I'm working on my Grandpa's socks right now because they're simple and don't need much concentration.

Do you ever get that Sinking Feeling?

Yesterday I was searching through my house, I had a skirt that I wanted to wear and I was determined to find it. I never did.

But I did find all my embroidery floss! No Aida fabric yet, but at least I have the floss.

In my search I came across a large bag filled with unfinished knitting projects. Ones that I had been working on prior to a baby shower I held in May, some of which, I don't even remember what they were.

That's when I got my sinking feeling, because that's when I started tallying up the UFO's I know I have and adding the ones I forgot about.

I think my next little while is going to be going through all my UFO's and either finishing them up, or frogging them.

I have my Holden Shawlette which is getting closer to being done, but still boring knitting to show you, I have the Spring Thaw Shawl that I'm letting sit for a bit because it needs some first aid, and I've decided to grab these socks that I had on the needles for my Grandpa.

This is Sockittome from Estelle Yarns in colour 52606. I really love this yarn, it is so soft and the colour transitions are beautiful and long. I don't know how well it will wear, but my Grandpa doesn't do a lot of walking.

Grandpa is diabetic and he has heart problems so his circulation isn't the greatest. He loves my knit wool socks though! I usually have a pair on the needles for him. These would have been done months ago if they hadn't ended up in a bag stuffed in a room so that my house looked somewhat presentable for family.

I'm going to keep these in my bag as simple knitting, stuff that doesn't need a pattern. They're easy toe up socks based off of Wendyknits standard pattern with a heel flap worked in reverse. I love this pattern because I don't have to worry about stitching up the toe, and I can just knit until I'm done my yarn on the cuffs.

This weekend I'm hoping to go through my house and round up all my yarn, projects, and the like and bring them down to my living room. Then I'm going to sort them out and get everything put neatly into my new crafting wardrobe. I'll probably have a section for UFO's which I'll be drawing from for the next while.

I'm hoping to have a bunch of finished knitted stuff to show you in the near future, so stay tuned.

Not much to show

So I've got past the stocking stitch part of the Holden Shawl, I'm now starting the lace section and I'm very excited. However, miles of stocking stitch doesn't really catch the attention. The colours are pretty though.

This is a full repeat of the Noro colourway. So far so good, usually when I use regular Noro I have problems with the colourway, in that I'll buy it because it has the most beautiful blue, only for it to only actually have 2 rows worth of that blue in it, and then a knot in the middle of the ball that keeps you in the ugly brown filler colour. Yes I'm still bitter about that scarf!

I'm really really looking forward to doing the lace portion of this, but it's the kind of lace that needs the pattern in front of you, at least while you're starting it, so that's coffee shop, podcast listening knitting.

I will be going back to the Spring Thaw shawl after this, I'd like to have both of these shawls done before the snow flies.

I've also been going through my Ravelry notebook and trying to update all my projects, and put pictures up for everything, so I was lucky enough to grab this shot of the project that made me stop knitting for 2 years.

These are the itty bitty socks, and I kind of wish I'd grabbed a picture of them when I had all 110 done. They were handed out to all the guests at my wedding. They had a few hard candies in them, and were clothes pinned with some tiny scrapbooking clothes pins to little fanned out napkins. We also gave little white boxes with heart chocolates for those who didn't care for knitting. 

At least everyone now has something I knit them and can't say I'm always leaving them out.

Each sock took 45 minutes, and I completed all 110 in 2 months, by myself. Oh the joys of a bus ride that takes 2 hours each way for work.

After that marathon I only picked up the needles for a few pairs of socks for my Grandfather.

Now that I've started picking up the needles again, I'm working very hard to knit from my stash. I have some nice stuff in there, but after three years of ignoring it, I think I can fall in love with my stuff enough to knit with it now.

I may have to do an "airing of the stash" post next week, if I have time to dump it all out and figure what I have on the weekend.

Why I may be in Trouble

I mentioned yesterday that I may be in trouble.

It's not a big thing, a big part of it is mainly that I've now got another crafting obsession, and I may not soon have room for all my crafting stuff. Not enough room... in a 1500 square foot house.

Granted I have a husband and two cats to share this space with, but still.

So what's going on that I have taken over the majority of the house? Well, let's take a run down of the hobbies I'm actively taking part in, and have supplies for in the house.

-Knitting
-Sewing (clothing, bags, corsets)
-Rug Hooking
-Model Figure Painting
-Art Journaling
-Regular Journaling
-Cross Stitch

It's safe to say that knitting is my main craft. I can take it anywhere, depending on the project, and if I mess something up I can just rip it out without a loss of any of the materials, and just start over. This is very good for a distracted girl like me. My yarn stash is not what it used to be. I used to be a hoarder. When we moved from the apartment to the house, my yarn stash took over a fair portion of the basement. Since then, I've decreased the stash. I went through the yarn and got rid of most of the acrylic (to a friend's Nana who makes the most amazing blankets). I also got rid of anything that I looked at and continually set aside. So now the majority of my stash can fit in one box/shelf in my crafting wardrobe without too much of a problem.

Sewing is a little more all over the place. I sew clothes, costumes, bags. I'm learning how to make boned corsets. I have tools ALL over. I have one area in the basement that is the fabric for one costume that I WILL finish one of these days. Most of the fabric is in a dresser in my closet in the craft room, but there are sections of fabric in other areas. That's probably the next of my stashes to get an overhaul. At least to know what I have, even if I don't get rid of anything.

Rug Hooking I haven't actually done for any length of time. It's something I'd like to get started into, my Grandma did it when she was alive. All the supplies that I have were free (thankfully) from the Nana I gave my acrylic to. This is just in 2 laundry baskets in my craft room, so it's not too big of a deal, but I'd like to actually pull one of the rugs out and do some work on it starting in the next year.

Model Painting is a fairly new thing for me. It's little figurines from a game we have called Super Dungeon Explore, and I've just been having fun being creative at the hobby store while my hubby plays Magic:The Gathering. I have my first big(ish) model that I'm trying to complete in time for a model show in October. This stuff is basically in a little case holding my paints and brushes, so it doesn't take up too much room.

Journaling is something that I'm off and on with. I write in my journal at least once a week, but I'm not so good with the art journaling. It was more of a neat thing when I heard about it, not necessarily something that I'm really going to get into. But we'll see.

AND CROSS STITCH!

I showed you guys some of my cross stitching earlier last week. I learned to cross stitch at school, and as far as I knew, it had to be done on Aida fabric, had to be stitched a certain way, had to be done with an embroidery hoop, and was almost always tacky little ornaments and stuff.

Earlier this year when I started making dice bags, I looked up some cross stitch patterns to see what was available to geek up my stuff. I also do some pole dancing for exercize and made up my own patterns for my lovely ladies. Those are becoming key chain dangles, or bag dangles or the like, and I was just kind of, shrugging my shoulders and figuring it wouldn't be much.

Then I started blogging again, and I bumped into an old friend around here on blogger, and I saw her cross stitch work. Madam Rahenna, I have you to blame for this!! Well not really, but at least for a little enabling.

I now have a folder full of free patterns and have discovered an Embroidery store in my town (which isn't very big so this is exciting), and a Crafting convention that's happening in Toronto in October called Creativ Festival.

I have also found out that I don't have to use just Aida fabric, nor do I have to stitch it as I was taught (there are many different stitches and things to learn), and it is not by any means just a bunch of tacky ornaments!

One of the first free patterns that caught my eye was this beautiful pattern based on John Anster Fitzgerald's Fairy Hourdes Attacking a Bat, however, this is the best picture of the pattern, not the artwork, that I can find. I'm a little worried that it's going to come out as a muddled mess. Then again, the muddled mess could be because of the stitcher rather than the pattern.

I'll have to think on it, but I really like this picture.

I also found a lovely set of 4 hearts based on the seasons that I'm going to be putting together on the same piece because they really do make a lovely group.

However, what with pretty fabrics, lots of floss, and the patterns, I think I might have to go through my sewing stash soon and make some room. Especially since I have a LNS and another friend who wants to learn cross stitching.

Like I said... I may be in trouble.

Where my focus currently is

And by "focus" I mean what projects currently have my attention.

So to start off, let's check out my finished Fisherman's Rib Scarf thing.

This is so cushy! It isn't symmetrical because I wasn't sure how much grey I had left and ended up just using up all the yarn I had left. Oh and thank goodness for spit splicing! I was 6 stitches short on the grey for the last row, but managed to spit splice in just enough from where I originally added in the grey.

The other nice thing for this super warm scarf, is that I can fold it in half and wrap it around my neck like a short scarf like this:

Or put it's full width around my shoulders like shawl, or use it as a small lap blanket.

Full FO Details can be found on Ravelry. This is made with approximately 1.5 balls of blue, and a .5 ball of grey Lamb's Pride Worsted yarn that I bought in Toronto years ago for my husband's sweater of insanity. This isn't an actual pattern, though I did use Wendy Knits Fisherman Rib scarf from her book as reference. With this I just cast on as many stitches as I wanted for the width and did the rib until I ran out of yarn. The stripes were done on the fly, there really wasn't a rhyme or reason to it except that I messed up and did 4 rows of the grey instead of 3, so I just started dropping it down to 1 row, and it ended up working.

Knitting with Lamb's Pride was nice, it's a soft yarn, but the mohair ended up EVERYWHERE, so I did sneeze a fair amount as it got in my nose. I enjoyed this knit, and may use a pattern similar to use up other left overs because it knit pretty quick. I started this just before the long weekend, and finished it up this past Sunday morning, so just over a week.

A part of me kind of wishes I had made it thinner so the scarf would be longer, but I think this will work well as it is. I kind of want to get a nice big shawl pin to hold it on, especially since I've been making a lot of shawls lately.

And with that let's look at my other two projects, both shawls.

First up is the Spring Thaw Shawl that I'm working on in Socks That Rock yarn that I got in the 2004 sock club. I've found that STR doesn't wear as well as I like it to and I find myself darning them fairly often. Don't get me wrong, it's very comfy as socks, but more like slipper socks than what I like to wear on a daily basis. So the beautiful yarn has slowly been being turned into scarfs, hats, and shawls.

I lost the ball band for this one so I can't tell you the colour, but it is a bunch of shades of blues and greys.

I do very much like this pattern. The over all design is lovely, and the yarn is fabulous to knit with.

I very much look forward to getting this off the needles and blocking it out, however:

I only have this much yarn left, and I'm only the 5th row of the edging. It's not that big of a deal, I just need to put out one full repeat of the pattern. This is actually a good thing because the pattern prefers it if you end on an even number of repeats width wise, and I originally ended on an odd number. So I just need to take the time to weave in some spare yarn to make sure I don't pull out too far, and then rip it out to that point and start the edging again.

So while that waits, I of course started something else (but this is IT, no new starts until I finish one of these shawls and get them blocked).

This is all Ravelry's fault. I was looking in the "Your Nicest FO's" thread and saw a gorgeous completed Holden Shawlette in a Raveler's homespun. I loved what it did to the colours, and how it showed off the long transitions. 

It was perfect for another ball of sock yarn, that I had started to turn into socks but then found out the yarn doesn't wear well, and it also didn't feel like anything I wanted on my feet. It was Noro Kureyon Sock, that I purchased from The Loopy Ewe ages ago. I love the colours of it, in fact, Noro is probably one of my favourite yarns in terms of colours and transitions. However I decided to set the yarn aside until I found a project that would do it justice.

I love the colourway, though the little peach parts aren't my favourite, they seem to be pretty small though, so hopefully they won't be the main thing you see.

Here's all the colours up to where I've paused in my knitting, the pink isn't as bright, and the green isn't as dull as it looks here, hopefully I can get a better picture that shows the colours properly.

So far I am very much enjoying how the simple stockinette stitch is showing off the colours. The only thing I'm worried about is the thick and thin areas of the yarn, it has a very different drape in sections due to this. 

I don't know if you can see at the top of the brown section where it gets thicker. I'm hoping that when I wash and block this once it's done it will bloom and not cause too much of a problem.

So that's what I currently have on the needles. Tomorrow I'll be telling you why I may be in trouble. See you then!

Of Knit Nights and Stash Acquisition... or not

Hello!

Did you guys have a good weekend? I'm just happy that I'm on a schedule now with this blog and have something to look forward to doing when I get to the coffee shop in the morning. I get to chat to you.

Though I must say, I almost fell into my pit of failure over the weekend. I have a knack for DOING ALL THE POSTS the second I get a blog and burning myself out by posting 3 times a day as I think of stuff, and then running out of things to post.

Having the weekend in which to rest, relax, enjoy, and think up what I'd like to chat to you about was really nice! It also allowed me to get a number of pictures to show you. This will probably be imperative as the winter months come, as I will not really have daylight to take pictures with when I'm at home, and my iPod does NOT like taking photos in the dark, and doesn't have a flash. Come November and December I may have to dig out my little point and click camera that I haven't used in forever.

So what did I do on the weekend? Well it started off with a little of this:

And ended with a day of stash shopping with absolutely no real stashy acquisition, but we'll get to that.

So on Friday, I met up at the inaugural Friday Night Knitting Group in my hometown in a lovely little coffee shop that just opened. It's run by a lovely married couple and doesn't have a ton of stuff there yet but I think they've only been open for a couple weeks now. So with luck they'll grow to be a lovely little tucked away coffee shop where we can go and relax. 

I didn't get a lot of pictures of the shop, but next week I'll try to show it off a little more, for now, let's head through the doors into the bathrooms (which are bigger on the inside).

And had the perfect sinks for any coffee shop:

It was lovely. One of the best parts was half way through our knit night, a gentleman came in and sat down, pulled out a ukulele, and started playing and singing. I have a bit of it on video, but I forgot to upload it. I'll see if I can it uploaded to show you tomorrow.

On Saturday I took part in a charity bake sale at my work. I don't have any pictures of it, but I can say that we raised $130 for Big Brothers of Canada, so that was awesome!

On Sunday I met up with my Mom and we went to a small little town on the river to eat, chat, and go crafty shopping.

This is the view from one of the restaurants we love. This is one of our favourite places to go to relax and have a Mom and Daughter day.

In our travels we hit up a little Knick Knack store that's a bit kitschy, but has a HUGE amount of loose leaf teas. I bought 4 flavours: White Mischief, Sleepy Hollow Pumpkin Chai, Ginger Peach, and Hazelnut.

We then decided to check out the other end of the street and found this lovely little area to sit and relax for a minute before continuing our quest for crafty goods.

We then headed to Mary Maxim where I found absolutely nothing that struck my fancy, even their cross stitching stuff was meh. Some times they have good stuff, this time not so much. Mom got things for her knitting though.

We then went back up to my town, and hit up the Value Village where I got three baggies of about 30 skeins of various DMC colours for $2.99 each (score!!) and we checked out a neat little gardening store that has the cutest interior I've seen in a while!

I don't have any photos of the floss, or of the FO that I got done over the weekend, but the great thing is, it gives me something to talk to you about tomorrow.

See you then!

The Quest of the Baby Sweater

A coworker of mine gave birth to her baby girl yesterday. Last week was her baby shower, and with a baby shower must come baby knits! A week prior to the shower I decided I was going to make a little cardigan out of some sock yarn I had in my stash.

I dutifully looked online for a lovely little pattern, then realized as I was casting on that the pattern was for DK weight and I was using fingering, so that wouldn't work, and since I had enough of a long tail, I just cast on as many stitches as I needed to make it wide enough for a 0-3 month old. I decided to make it a cardigan that a baby could grow into. Short(ish) sleeves, and no ties or buttons on the front so it can just sit open. Just something to wear during early fall since that was when the baby was going to be born.

I knit like crazy, at work, at home, anywhere I could pull my needles out. On the day of the shower I finished my lunch with half a sleeve left to do, so I did something I'm not really proud of, but for the last half hour of the day I knit at my desk. I still answered all the phones, and did everything my job needed, thankfully we (for once) had a quiet last half hour. At the end of the day I just had to cast off the last sleeve and weave in 4 threads which were completed in 5 minutes, and I ran upstairs to the shower. The biggest comment I got from everyone at the shower was that they couldn't believe that something that small could fit a human. I mentioned back that considering where the baby currently was, you didn't want it any bigger!

Due to the last minuteness of the sweater, the only photo I have of it right now is of me presenting it to the Mom, though she has promised to send me better photos to put on Ravelry.

This was made with some variegated Patons Kroy for the accents, and another sock yarn that I will have to get the name from when I get home for the bulk of the cardigan in a lovely light pink. The pattern was created on the fly, and it's a drop shoulder, 1/2 sleeve cardigan with no buttons or ties. I wish I could have blocked it to get the front bands to lie flat. I just did a few stitches of garter stitch up both edges to try and keep the stocking stitch under control.

I'm glad that sock yarn is as nice as it is now. The mom will be able to toss this into the wash without any worry of it felting thanks to the nylon content.

To finish the week out, here's a bunch of pictures of my cats swarming me the second I sit down when I get home.

Please excuse the state of my living room, we're still getting caught up after camping. Also woohoo! I made it one week! Happy Friday everyone. We'll see you on Monday. I'm hoping to have the Fisherman's Rib shawl/scarf thing done by the end of the weekend, and I have a couple other projects that I'm going to be working on finishing that I can chat to you about.

I'm so excited that a schedule seems to be working, we'll see how long I can keep this up.

Old Stuff - 5 favourite things I've knit

The problem with me and blogging, or starting a new hobby of any sort really, is burnout. I had to stop my self at least 5 times last night from logging on and posting something here. I had ideas like crazy, but I know that if I don't hold back, I'll run out very quickly.

However, in addition to holding back from posting a ridiculous amount, I also forgot to put my pictures online, so we're going back in time so I can talk about my list of favourite things I've knit.

So here is my top five.

Number 5:

The wee Hello Kitty sweater. I made this back in 2003 when I was getting back into knitting. I love Hello Kitty and there was a lovely KAL going on for this sweater. However it was designed for a 3 year old, and the only 3 year old I knew was out in Northern Ireland, and that's where it ended up. This was my first attempt at Intarsia and I'm really proud of how this sweater turned out.

Number 4:

The Doctor Who Scarf. This was knit at the request of a friend. All 11.5 feet of mind numbing garter stitch. However it did turn out beautifully and now that it's been almost a decade I'm actually considering making one for myself. It helps that I've been pulled into the Doctor Who fandom as well.

Number 3:

Swan Lake shawl. This was a first for me, first Mystery KAL, first Beaded knit, first lace weight shawl (everything else had been made in fingering), first major blocking, first knitting internet drama. Anyone who made this during the Mystery KAL will probably remember the drama surrounding it when we were about halfway through. Anyway, this massive shawl turned out beautifully and went to go live with my friend in Italy who's online handle was Swan. I'm very proud of this knit, and it's another one on my list to make for me.

Number 2:

These were just fun. They're Arrrrr-gyles, and were made as a Christmas present for a friend in Singapore. We all were part of an online game called Puzzle Pirates, and when we decided to trade Christmas gifts, these were just perfect for her. It also helps that she has the world's littlest feet.

Number 1:

This sweater requires a bit of explanation. The first picture is my brother at 4, wearing a sweater that my Grandmother had made him. Many years later, he unearthed this picture and posted it on his Facebook stating that he would "totally wear this sweater if I could find it again". Knowing that the sweater wouldn't fit him, but that I could recreate it, off I went. The colours aren't exact, and there was a good amount of figuring necessary to make an adult sized sweater for him. But it worked out and he enjoyed wearing it a couple of times.

So that's my favourite things I've knit. I just realized that most of them are well traveled and overseas, and that none of them ended up with me. Maybe in a few years I will actually decide to keep some of my favourite knits, but for now, I'll just enjoy the fun of seeing others enjoy them.