Priorities

You know you’re a knitter when less than 24 hours before leaving for a week’s vacation, the only thing that’s packed is your knitting.

Knitting

I’m bringing the Chamomile baby hat to work on the plane, the herringbone rib sock and the spring forward sock. I think that should be enough! I would love to bring my Ishbel with me but I’m weary of losing it if my suitcase happened to get lost.

Suitcases

Tomorrow evening DH and I are flying down to Orlando, having breakfast with Alyson and Travis the next morning and then making our way to Cape Canaveral to board the Disney Magic for a cruise to the Western Caribbean. We’ll be heading to Key West, Grand Cayman, Nassau, Casteway Cay (Disney Island) and then back. We were supposed to stop in Cozumel but due to the swine flu our stop has been changed to Nassau.

This is our first cruise so we don’t quite know what to expect. But we’ve heard only good things about Disney cruises so it will be fun no matter what! The only excursion we have planned is snorkeling in Sting Ray City in the Caymans (my snorkeling gear is the only thing already in my suitcase!).

I’ve seen that there was internet access on the boat so I’ll definitely try to get on the internet a couple times. Maybe I’ll even be able to post about how my trip is going on! If not, I hope to be able to show you some FO’s when I come back!

NaKniMitMo

Have you heard about the NaKnitMitMo KAL yet?  The group was created off of a crazy idea my friend Carol had. She wanted to knit mittens in January and get other people to do the same. It started on her blog and before she knew it it grew into a Ravelry group with over 300 members. If you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure to do so!

I’ve been wanting to knit mittens and mitts and thought this would be the perfect excuse to knit distract myself with from my current projects with a pair of mitts. I picked something really easy, so as not to require too much attention. The pattern is Toast/ Toasty from A Friend to Knit With. It’s a plain tube with a thumb in the Toasty version. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do a thumb yet, although I probably will. I really like Dogged Knits’ version with a gusset thumb, so I’ll probably do it like that if I do a thumbed version.

I picked a slightly thinner yarn than the recommended yarn, Madelinetosh Tosh Worsted in Tern. It’s a beautiful silver gray that is coming out beautiful in plain stockinette.

I wanted to cast on so badly that I hand wound the yarn in the car on my way to Webs over the weekend. After a false start I ended up casting on 40 stitches and now it is smooth sailing. At least until I reach the thumb!

I’m halfway done the first one already, although I would be further along if I had been able to knit even a stitch yesterday or today. But I have a long weekend coming up so maybe I’ll be able to finish one mitt : )

Oh yeah, you might be curious to know what I bought at  Webs. I hope you won’t be too disappointed but I was very, very good.  I was going to buy a skein of this yarn I’ve been wanting to get my hands on; Rio de la Plata Merino sock and a pattern. I thought the particular skein (sp38) I wanted was on sale but when I got to the registers I found out it wasn’t, so I put it back and ended up buying only this pattern:

It’s really a beautiful blanket and I hope to knit it one day!

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For all my friends who’ve helped by knitting a sock yarn square, please click here to see what we made with it! Thank you again to all of you who’ve knitted a square, Michele was really, really happy and she loves it!

Trip to Québec

(To the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)

On our trip to Québec there was:

• 12 moose

Yes, 12. I’d never seen a moose before that and it was a real treat to see so many. We had to be really careful driving because it was night time and with all the moose on the side of the road we didn’t want to risk hitting one. Because it was night time I didn’t get to take a picture and on our way back we didn’t see any. Maybe next time!

• 11, 10, 9° F, temperatures in the mountains of Maine as we were driving up

• Only 8 rows knit on my Herringbone Rib sock

• 7 long hours of driving (each way)

• 6 family members

We spent the weekend with my parents, my brother, his girlfriend and my two lovely nieces.

• 5 inches knit on my sock yarn square

• 4, the birthday my niece Naomi celebrated

• 3 skeins of sock yarn

I picked these up at the post office as we were leaving, so they kind of count, right! This is the yarn I received for the Sundara Artist’s Choice sock club.

• 2 turkeys crossing the road

• 1 fabric store

The Fabric Garden, really nice quilting shop, much bigger than my LQS. I made a few purchases…

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This is for Abigail: you mentioned in my last post being interested in one of my box bags, please check your spam folder if you’re still interested!

Random Monday

Sewing:

I tried a new free pattern I found over at Show Your Workings. It is a pattern for the Japanese knot bag. I ended up sewing up two bags because I wasn’t sure I’d understood everything properly the first time around. I still haven’t quite figured out what to do with the handles but here’s the second bag I made.

The bag is reversible and you can see the other side here. The first bag was made with a Japanese print and you can see it here and here.

Shopping:

This weekend, DH and I went to stART on the Street in Worcester. My friend Karen from Simply June had a booth there. I just had to purchase this cute little pouch, especially since this button came with it!

Hiking:

Also this weekend, I hiked up Mt Monadnock, NH. It was quite the hike and I have to say that I am quite sore. The view from the top was really awesome and well worth the hardship to make it there.

You can see a lot more pictures in this Flickr set. I managed to knit a couple rows on my Knitterly Things stripy sock and you can see that I’m wearing my finished Stacked Eyelet Cowl.

Knitting:

I just had to. I couldn’t resist. We just got in this new yarn for the store and I had to have some. And I had to cast on, right away… The yarn is K1C2 Ty-Dy Socks and the colors were screaming my name. So I guess I have yet another sock on the needles and I have absolutely no will-power!

BTW, before anyone freaks out, this is not my foot but a plastic foot model that was a bit too small,  I added tape to make it bigger, which is why you can see tape on the foot.

Newport, RI – Cliff Walk

A few days ago, after reading Javajem‘s post about the Cliff Walk, I was inspired to go there and enjoy the beautiful weather that we were having.

After a quick picnic along the harbor we parked the car at the Easton Beach and headed to the the Cliff Walk. The Cliff Walk takes you along the shore, on a path between the ocean and the beautiful mansions along the coast.

The Breakers is one of the grandest mansions there next to Salve Regina University.

Here are some additional pictures I took along our walk:

If you are interested, you can see the rest of my photos on my Flickr account.

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Views from Weirs Beach, New Hampshire

Since I didn’t take any pictures while in the Adirondacks 2 weeks ago, I made sure to take a bunch this weekend in Weirs Beach, NH.

Crazy cool architectural details

Make sure to click on the picture to get to the bigger size

View on Lake Winnepesaukee

Lovely colors

Funny looking arcade game

There are both of yarn store and a quilting store in Weirs Beach although I didn’t learn about the yarn store until it was already past closing time. I did manage to buy a couple fat quarters at “The Quilted Frog” though.

WIP Wednesday

I’m back from vacation. Our stay in the Adirondacks was fun. There was rafting, hiking, visiting and a bit of shopping too. Although I did take my camera with me I didn’t end up taking any pictures. So you’ll have to make do with pictures of my knitting!

The evening before we took off I cast on for a new project… I am afraid that I am suffering from castonitis, hopefully it wont last too long!

This new project is Pixie Purls’ Country Kiddie in Jojoland Melody Superwash in the colorway 18.

I really love this cute pattern and will be making more of them. It is written for sock yarn and would look great in almost any yarn. I just have one ball of the Melody so I’m hoping that it will be enough to make a short top.

If I hadn’t worked so much on this little top I would probably be much further along on my Marigolds. They’re just waiting for a heel now.

I did work quite a bit on my Vesper self-striping sock though and am now much further than this:

The sock now looks like a long tube as I will be knitting an afterthought heel on it. I hope it works out!

I did not work on my Tipsy Socks at all so they look exactly like they did before I left.

And I won’t even mention my 4 other single socks…

Another big WIP is my 1930′s Pinwheel quilt top. It was sandwiched together the day before I left and I tried my hand at hand-quilting while on vacation. I didn’t get very far on it but I hope to be able to work a bit on it every week.

Maybe I will have it done in 2015!

Taking off!

And this is what I’ll be working on:

Plain stockinette sock in Vesper Sock Yarn (June Sock Club installment) in Lovely Lollopop Sky. Note that it’s a 4 color stripe not the usual 3! I call these my clown socks as the colors are just so bright! I would like to try an afterthought heel with these, wish me luck!

When I first got this yarn, Madelinetosh Sock in Chamomile, I knew they were destined to become Marigold Socks by Pamela Wynne. The pattern repeat is a lot of fun and I can’t stop!

And since I’m casting on all these new socks I had to finish at least one pair of socks, so I picked the Tipsy Socks in sport weight yarn! The yarn is Sleeping Dragon in Mossy Frog. I should have those done in no time!

We’re taking off tomorrow for the Adirondacks and will be back next weekend. I don’t think I’ll have any internet access during the week though. So I hope to get lots of knitting done, and, if I can fit my spinning wheel in the car, some spinning too!

See  you next week!

Excursion to Ogunquit Maine

Last weekend I found out that my mom and my aunt (visiting from Vancouver) were going to be heading down to Ogunquit for a couple days. Since we live at a very reasonable distance from Ogunquit I decided to drive up there last Monday.

I had made sure to google possible yarn stores in the area and found the Yarn Sellar in York, right on route 1. I didn’t want to buy any yarn but they had bottles of Eucalan which I needed. Further up the road I saw a big sign for a quilt shop. Having some time to spare before I was due to meet up with my mom I decided to make a quick detour by Knight’s. I found this store really nice with a lot of variety and some really nice fabrics. Of course, I had to spend some money there as they were having their Anniversary Sale.

After meeting up with my mom and aunt at their inn, we walked to Perkins Cove for some lunch.

The weather wasn’t the nicest and it rained a few drops while we were having lunch but we were able to walk from Perkins Cove to Ogunquit via the Marginal Way after having a bite to eat.

We found quite funny that a section of the Marginal Way was closed due to some construction but that a lifeguard was still guarding a section of the coast.

I had my mom hold one of my socks in progress when we stopped at one of the multiple benches on the path.

We then headed into town for some shopping but were interrupted by some very heavy rain. We made our way back to the Inn using the local bus (a very convenient way to get from the beach to the multiple Inns in and around Ogunquit). Sadly for me, it was time for me to go back home by then. I had a great time there and must be sure to go back there sometimes this summer with DH.

I got to knit a bit over the weekend so I’ll have something to show you in a couple days!

Time for an update

Been back from TNNA for a couple days now. The trip went really well and was a lot of fun. Driving there went well. We took our time and tried to stop at a few yarn shops on the way. The first one, Colorful Stitches, was closed on vacation, the second and third were non-existent and the fourth one, Indigo Yarn (somewhere in New York State), finally, was open.

TNNA in itself was really impressive. It was huge and there were tons of celebrities around! I got to see Cat Bordhi, Norah Gaughan, Kristin Nicholas and Stephanie Japel, talk to Cookie, Stephanie McPhee and Anne (Knitspot). I wasn’t part of the “in” crowd so didn’t get to do the fun things that you might have seen around the blogs. But it was fun nonetheless and now I know what to look forward to next year! We got lots of new yarns and accessories for the store and got to see lots of interesting things. So it definitely was a great trip overall. An hour into the drive back to Massachusetts, our AC broke down… We drove for over 10 hours in 90+°F with the windows down, lets just say it’s not an experience I would like to do again.

I was able to do a bit of knitting while traveling and was able to finish the 2 socks I had been working on. The first one was my Noro Kureyon Sock.

I’m really pleased at how it came out and plan to knit the second sock exactly the same. Hopefully the yarn will cooperate with me!

The second sock I finished was the Rococo sock in O-Wool Classic 2-ply.

This one was fun to knit and looks really awesome. Anne is really a great designer!

Before leaving for the show I really wanted to do some sewing, especially after seeing Alyson‘s new bag (scroll down a bit)!. A while back I had bought this fabric to make Amy Butler’s Frenchy Bag.

I finally got around to cutting up the pieces and sewing it up just before leaving for the show. I was even sewing the night before instead of packing! The result of all this hard work was this:

It’s a fairly small bag (I made the handbag rather than the shoulder bag) but it’s really cute. I will be making the shoulder bag next time though! The fabric I used is by Timeless Treasures fabric, the Wasabi collection. I really loved those prints together, although it doesn’t really match anything I own.

Here’s a shot of the inside:

I’m quite pleased with the final product. It was a bit fiddly at times but it came out pretty good.

That’s all for now. More in a few days!