Monday, May 24, 2010

What I've Been Up To

Hello Knitters,

I know I said I'd post again on Tuesday, but I couldn't wait, so I'm posting today. Today is our Victoria Day in Canada, which means that everyone has the day off. My sister and I did a little tanning this afternoon and my parents when to the greenhouse to pick out some plants. May 24th is our "safe to plant" date here. The weather has been beautiful, very warm and sunny. Yesterday my sister and went kayaking quite a few times up and down the river. It was really fun and a great way to get a sunburn! My sister is red as a tomato today! I'm not as bad, but the sad thing is, we only burnt the fronts of our bodies and the backs were very un-tanned, so we laid out today for a bit to even things out. I'm not sure if it worked though yet. Anyways, I wanted to do a little re-cap of what is been happening here this last few days, so here it goes:




Tuesday was my birthday as well as my parent's anniversary. It was a nice and quite day. Since it snuck up on me, I didn't pick out my presents yet, but my Mom surprised me with the Jane Austen An Illustrated Treasury by Rebecca Dickson! So perfect since I'm taking part in the Jane Austen Read-Along/Knit-Along! My Dad surprised me with the lovely flowers in the picture above! And my sister gave me the most amazing card ever! I have such an awesome family!!!!



I got to dye some yarn too, which is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. This is it in progress. The colours weren't quite as deep as I wanted when it dried though, so I'm re-dyeing it today. It was such a fun process, I'm for sure going to do this again!



While the yarn was cooling, Mom and I took a walk and picked some forget-me-nots. This is the path to the lake, doesn't it look like a fairy trail? That's me off in the distance....I still have my dyeing clothes on as well as yellow rubber boots....I know, classy eh? Later that evening I got a visit from two of my aunts and a cousin. It was so good to see them and have a nice visit, we don't get a chance to get together very often. My one aunt gave me two amazing cookbooks, one about cupcakes and the other on chocolate. She said she thought she'd benefit from it since we always bring my baking experiments over for them to eat! (Since my cousin's birthday was on Saturday, I baked him a cake and then used one of the icing recipes out of the cupcake book as a filling for the cake, so she got to sample that! lol). All in all, I had a fantastic day, it made getting older a little easier to take.




This is a sock I'm working on for my Mom. It is the Rainbow colourway of the new Knit Picks Felici Fingering weight yarn. I'm really liking how it's knitting up, and Mom loves the colours! I've been working on this yesterday and today since I made a mistake on my shawl and needed to put it aside and do some mindless knitting for a bit. I'll get back to it soon, but I just need a break.

Like I said earlier, today I'm re-dyeing the yarn from before. I thought since I was already getting out the yarn and dye stuff, I might as well try some crockpot dyeing at the same time. I just poured in the colours and now I'm waiting for it to 'exhaust'. I hope it all turns out beautiful and I can share some pictures with you soon. Anyways, I should get back to that. Have a great rest of the day everyone!!

Happy Knitting (and dyeing as the case may be)

P.S. While getting the link for the Felici yarn, I noticed that there are new colours of Imagination sock yarn if you didn't already know. Very pretty colours....I'm already planning my order!

5 comments:

  1. What a nice weekend you had!
    That's some nice scenery, especially the river, it looks so beautiful and inviting.

    Cupcake book? Which one? I've been meaning to purchase a cupcake recipe book, maybe the Martha Stewart one, those cupcakes in that book look so delicious, then again ALL cupcakes are DEEELICIOUS!

    That Knit Picks Felici yarn looks gorgeous! I LOVE those colors, they just bright up my day :) I have to go get me some. Is that the first sock you're making? I wonder if it requires one or two skeins to make a pair of socks, I'll have to check the yardage on the Knit picks' website.

    I'm soo glad you had a wonderful birthday, it's always the best to spend it with your family!

    Have a good night,

    ~ Eliana ~

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  2. Hi Eliana,
    The cupcake book is called "Cupcake Heaven" by Susannah Blake. It's really good and has recipes for more fancier type cupcakes that are easy to make. I agree with you, the cupcakes in Martha's book are amazing! I'm a huge cupcake fan too! They're the perfect little treat to make - they bring a smile to everyone!
    Yes, this is the first sock. I would think that for normal length socks you'd need two balls of the Felici because they're 50 grams and 218 yards. It's so much fun to knit with the bright colours and the yarn is very soft! I highly recommend it :-)

    Take care,
    Raili

    P.S. The river does look inviting, but it's really, really cold! lol

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  3. It does sound like you had a lovely birthday Raili, with such thoughtful, heartfelt gifts, and beautiful flowers..... way to go Dad!! I'm anxious to see your dyeing projects finished up. I think I'd like to try dyeing sometime. I just ordered some Felici yarn, those new colours were just irrisistable. :) I just ordered myself a cupcake tree last week. Perhaps I need a good cupcake cookbook too. Blessings to you for your brand new year.

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  4. Armida,

    Thank you so much for your reply. I will make sure I look for that cupcake book by Susannah Blake the next time I go to Borders books store. Yes, cupcakes are the perfect treat for any occasion :) yummy! Yea, 218 yards isn't enough for both pairs of socks, thanks for the info, I will make sure I order 2 skeins.
    The river is too cold there? Water here is very warm in Hot Arizona, people started swimming a month ago. The pool feels very good in the heat.
    By the way, what kind of dye did you use? Kool aid, dye ink, or something else?

    ~Eliana~

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  5. Eliana,

    Yes, the river here is quite cold. We have a strong current and then the ships that go by push in all the very cold water from the middle of the river to the shore so it doesn't get much of a chance to warm up! A lot of times I wish we had a pool so I could actually do some swimming :-) We have had a lot of hot days here lately though so maybe it will be a bit warmer than usual this year.

    The dye I used for the yarn was Kool-Aid. I used Orange, Cherry and Grape. I haven't gotten a chance to re-skein it yet, but I hope it knits up nice. It sure smells good anyways! lol

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