One Year!!

Good Morning Knitters,

Today is my blogiversary!! It's been one year since I started blogging. It seems like I've been doing this forever, yet at the same time, it also seems like it was just yesterday I got the idea to start writing about my knitting adventures. I'm so glad that I did, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. It's been wonderful to be able to share my knitting passion with others who feel the same way, especially when I don't have anyone in my house or nearby who I can talk to about such things. I want to thank all my blog readers for taking the time out of your busy days to read what I have to say and leave such sweet, encouraging comments!!

I wanted to celebrate by having a giveaway, but things around here have been to busy lately, I haven't got a chance to plan anything yet. When I talked to my Mom about it, she suggested I wait and host it on the 21st which is also the first day of summer. Really, what better way to start off summer than with a blog giveaway? So that's what I am going to do. It will give me the time I need to prepare everything :-)

On another note, I think my sister is moving into her house this weekend. I hope she would like me to come and stay with her sometime next week. My cousin is coming to down with her girls to help her Mom out while she has surgery, and since she will be staying in the city, I thought if I was up there then she could pop over for a visit. I know she'd like to see the new house too. I hope it all works out.

Today I'm hoping to get a lot of crafty things done. I have quite a list of projects that need completing, but I haven't had the mindset to just sit down and finish them. I need to do some sewing today since I can do my knitting while in the car on the way to town tomorrow. So I should go and get to it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!!

Happy Knitting!

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!

Victoria Day Weekend

Hi Knitters,

Happy Victoria Day long weekend to all my fellow Canadians!! This is just a short note to wish you all a wonderful weekend....and to remind you to fit in some knitting time! Today was filled with so much stuff that I didn't have time to write a longer post, so I will be back on Tuesday with an update. Until then, relax, take care, and have fun!!

Happy Knitting!!

One FO and a New Project

Hello Knitters,

I've got pictures!! I'm in the process of blocking the little baby cardigan I mentioned I was knitting, but after making so many mistakes and having to take it out and re-knit, I wanted to show you right away....before something else happens to it!


The pattern is the Garter Yoke Baby Cardi by Jennifer Hoel and the yarn is Knit Picks Felici Sport in Picnic. It's an easy, cute pattern and I have no idea why I had so many problems. I think it might have been because most of the time when I was working on it, I was also chatting with people. Usually I don't have a problem with that, but this time I guess I did. The yarn was great to work with. A little bit splitty at times, but nothing too bad. It's super soft and the colours are fantastic. This picture doesn't do it justice because the sun was coming in the window and messing with my camera, but I hope to take another picture once I get the buttons sewn on.


My newest project is the Traveling Woman Shawl byLiz Abinante. Recently I joined the Austentatious Fiber Artists Group on Ravelry and right now they are doing a RAL/KAL for Pride and Prejudice!! My absolute favourite book of Jane Austen's and my favourite movie of all time (the A&E version with Colin Firth)!! The KAL part is lace themed, so I picked this shawl as my project. I'm so incredibly excited about this RAL/KAL if you can't already tell. I haven't read P&P all the way through since Grade 9 and I haven't really done much in the way of lace. The yarn I'm using is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Blue Yonder. It is way more prettier than I ever expected, and it's such a joy to knit with! I had originally purchased it for socks, but now that I look at it, it's almost too pretty to be hidden in my shoes all the time! Now I'm considering making shawls with my other skeins as well....but that's for another time :-)

I hope everyone is having a great week! I will be back soon!

Happy Knitting!!

It's the Weekend Already??

Happy Saturday Knitters,

My how this week has flown by!! I was hoping to have some pictures to show you today of this cute little baby cardigan I'm working on, but I've been having some trouble with it so it's not ready to be photographed just yet. I don't know why, but I've been making mistakes left and right with this project. I've got to take out one arm and the bottom edging and re-do them. When I picked this out, I thought it would be a quick knit I could finish in a couple of days, it's been almost a week now and I'm still not done! I just hope I can get it finished soon.

I mailed off my Springtime in Paris swap package yesterday, so my swap partner should get it early next week. I tried to find a pretty box to put it all in, but I had no such luck so I went to the US Post Office and bought a box there that was pink with butterflies on it. It's very cute, but smaller than I thought it was going to be. I had to squeeze everything in there really tightly, so I hope it arrives in good condition!

I got more Knit Picks Felici in the mail the other day! Yay! This time though it's for socks for my Mom and sister. I got them to go through the colours and pick out which ones they would like for their own socks. Now I just need to knit them! It sure seems like I'm accumulating yarn faster than I can knit it....I have a feeling I'm going to have to make some sort of plan of action to take care of this soon....

Today I've done a bit of baking. I made a carrot cake in a 9x13 pan as well as banana butterscotch cupcakes. I have to ice both of them yet, but I'm waiting to see if I should freeze one of them instead and bring out next weekend. I'm also going to make up some overnight French toast for Sunday breakfast tomorrow, but I'll do that after supper. I think right now I need to go and get to work on that sweater! Wish me luck!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Springtime in Paris Swap Package!!

Good Evening Knitters,

I know this is my second post today, but I just had to share my Springtime in Paris Swap Package that arrived this afternoon! My amazing swap partner was Becky (gathersnomoss on Ravelry)! She put together a fantastic package for me! I am so blessed!!

This is the "springtimey" box that arrived in the mail this afternoon:

This is the adorable Frenchie hat and Booties she made for me! She named them "Neapolitan" and said that in the 19th century, Neapolitan ice cream makers were all the rage in Paris. How cool is that? I love them so much and can hardly wait till I have a baby of my own to wear them!

Here's a shot of the entire contents of the package. Look at everything!!!! Gorgeous right?

Here's a better close up of half. As you can see in this picture, she sent me an adorable French themed project bag, a nice and big bag of Tully's French Roast Coffee (oh how I enjoy my coffee, I can hardly wait till tomorrow morning to have some!), a skein of Spud and Chloe Sweater in Jelly Bean (I've been wanting that colour for so long!), a beautiful Paris mini notebook, daisy disposable hankies (they are tissues, but I really think hankies sounds much more French. If you look real close, the package actually says hankies on it), a package of beautiful ribbons (I'm thinking I could use them for a spring themed Ribbons hat maybe?).



In this picture you can see the rest of the package: there is some yummy looking Roules Dor - which are thin crepes rolled into a delicate flute (these are actually made in France), super delicious French lemon drops, adorable French themed stickers, a lovely bar of grapefruit soap that smells fantastic, Effiel Tower stitch markers (how perfectly French!), pink flower-shaped silicone baking cups (I have always wanted silicone baking cups, and these are flower-shaped!!!! I'm going to have to put these to use very, very soon!), and a lovely card with a picture of Mt. Rainier on it.

I am just SO excited and so thankful!! I feel very spoiled! Thank you from the bottom of my heart Becky for everything! I love it all! You are so amazing!!!! Thank you!!!

P.S. for some reason the pictures are showing up crooked in this post, but you can see them much better on my Ravelry project page here.