A Pattern, a Prom, a New House and a New Project

Hello Knitters,

Happy Memorial Day to all you Americans out there! I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend full of fun with family and friends and lots great weather! Today it's a bit rainy looking and much cooler than it has been for quite a while, but that's alright with me, we desperately need the rain here. The wind just picked up and I can smell rain in the air, so I'm pretty sure it will rain soon.

I do have a little something for you my dear blog readers. If you look on my sidebar under "My Free Knitting Patterns" you should see a spot where it says "Fairytale Knee Socks Pattern" that is the pattern I wrote up over the weekend for the knee socks I made a while back. It's a super easy toe-up pattern and you don't have to make them knee socks if you don't want either, you can end the sock at whatever height you'd like. I hope you all enjoy that pattern, I know I had fun knitting them! If you find any errors in the pattern please contact me and let me know since I wrote it up a while after I actually knit the socks. I used Knit Picks Imagination yarn which you can substitute with any sock yarn you would like to use, however, I thought I should mention that there are five new colours of Imagination that came out last week, so there's a very nice selection of colours. Click here for the Ravelry page for the Fairytale Knee Socks!

I do have a few things to catch everyone up on. I wanted to blog for the last so many days but all sorts of things have kept me busy so I didn't have time. First off, during the middle of the week my Aunt asked me if I would like to make a corsage with silk flowers for my cousin's girlfriend. Their prom was on Saturday. I said yes and then got to work. Her dress was white and black so that was the theme. Here's the final outcome:

On the weekend we moved some of my sister's things into her new house. She is going to be moving in very soon once the appliances arrive and everything is ready. She said I could come and stay with her sometimes since she'll be the only one living there until after the wedding when her fiance (well he'll be her husband then) will move in. I think that would be a lot of fun. She's usually super busy with work and then by the time she drives the hour it takes her to get home, she ends up going right to bed, so we don't get to spend much time together. When she lives up there, she will be able to come home from work earlier so if I stayed up there sometimes, we'd get to hang out more. I'm actually looking forward to it. We haven't really hung out together much for the last eight years. She was away at school for 5 years and then when she came back home, she started working and has been busy ever since. It'd be really nice to be able to spend time with her these last few months before she's gets married and starts her new life. Her house has some very lovely flowerbeds and even a garden plot, which I'm very excited about. She also said they will have high-speed and even wireless, so I can blog much quicker! How cool will that be?!? We only have dial-up here, so it takes me forever to upload pictures and download things and just use the Internet in general.

For news on the knitting front, after finishing up some special knitting, I cast on for a new summer bag. The pattern is the Guernsey Style Bag from the Spring/Summer 2010 Debbie Bliss Magazine. The yarn I'm using is Debbie Bliss Eco Aran in red. I'm enjoying the pattern and yarn so far. I thought it was a perfect summer project.

I'm also still working on the rainbow socks for my Mom. I'm almost done the first sock, and then I need to start the second one. I really like how the stripes worked up, they're so pretty!

I haven't done anymore dyeing lately, but I do have some blue yarn I hope to share with you all soon. I just have to throw it into the wash to make sure all the dye is out.

Well, so much for my prediction of rain, the sun is back out and looks like it's going to be another nice day! I guess all that wind blew the storm clouds right away. I think I better stick to my knitting and not weather predicting! I hope you all have a great day!

Happy knitting!!

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!

My Knee-Socks!!

Hello Knitters,

Here are some pictures of the finished knee-socks! These are just some "rough" ones I took myself while I was wearing them. I want to get Mom to take some pictures outside so that you can get a better look. They are so soft and warm! I'm fully enjoying them, and I plan on making more pairs of them in the future. This is really great yarn. It's Knit Picks Imagination in Unicorn.

I thought I'd also share a picture of the Pavlova I made for Mom's Mother's Day dessert. It turned out really well. The recipe is from Ina Garten's cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home, which has tons of great recipes. Actually, all of Ina's cookbooks are fantastic. This pavlova was so easy and quick to make. It's the perfect thing for the summer time when all the fresh berries are in season. It's also so light that it makes a great way to end a big meal. I know I'll be making it again and again!

Well, I hope you are all having a lovely start to the week. I will be back tomorrow to share another project that I'm working on!

Take care, and enjoy the day!