Knitting socks, The Wanderer and Bison shorts

Joining Ginny today at Small Things blog for Yarnalong...

Well... I'm still reading Robyn Carr's The Wanderer and enjoying it for all it's paperbacky goodness. Many thanks to Ranee at Arabian Knits for sharing her love of "happy little murder" stories when she needs a bit of book candy herself.
Things have just started to (ahem) heat up which isn't bad considering I'm 2/3 of the way through before I've encountered any adult content. Good, simple story line and I'm still not 100% sure how it's going to end. Love it.
The Cable and Garter socks are knitting along nicely. I'm working the back of the heel now.

My only issue is that I am not enjoying these dpns. In fact I might hurl them through the living room window soon for all their ends keep ending up in the wrong places. I'm sorely tempted to go screaming off to my LYS in search of a more reasonable pair of circular needles, the likes of which I do not have in this size in my collection. Grrrrr.
In other news, the Em-ster left for Germany today. I did indeed send her with a pair of talisman pajamas. Shorts instead of pants. I didn't have time to take a photo but they were awesome. I had some soft cotton in a bison-print from another pant-making adventure.
Imagine shorts with a family of bison serenely grazing in a prairie scene, repeating all over the shorts. It's possible she will not appreciate the awesome-ness that is this these shorts but that is a chance I will take. At least I know she will laugh before she hides them on the bottom of her suitcase.

Just One Hour

I have just been blessed with an hour to my very own. That hour where everyone leaves and the house is empty and nothing is expected of you. I always have this moment of panic-what to do with that hour??? What if they come home early? What if I don't pick the right thing to do to spend that hour?? I go through my mental priority to do list and quickly cross off the work, things such as emptying the dishwasher, tidying up, dusting. Then I let myself look at my own to do list-knitting, sewing, listening to the silence, reading and being here. So here I am.
I haven't had time to upload my pictures from last week at the cottage. I just finished the mountain of laundry from that week at the cottage and airing out everything. I'll find another snippet of time to deal with the many pictures we took. I'll add it to the to do list.
Today is "Get the Em-ster Ready for Germany" Day. She is leaving for Germany tomorrow afternoon with her aunt and grandmother for 2 weeks. All we have to do is pack her up and make sure all the paperwork is in order for shipping your child across the ocean to visit 2 countries (France also) with her aunt and grandmother. I am beginning to get a little sappy about this. 2 weeks is a long time. I am going to miss this crazy bundle of energy.

I want to make something to send her with, something she can look at and hold and think "My mom loves me so much she made me this" but I don't know what to make and the clock is ticking. It's difficult to decide what the right thing is and then execute a plan with less than 24 hours until the Airporter comes to collect her.

(she was photo-bombing)

It's also like a talisman, this thing. It's a talisman to hold back the evils of this world and keep her safe and return her home to me in one piece. I think I can sew her up a pair of pajama pants in the time I have. Nothing holds back evil like pajama pants. Right.
What would you do with one blessed hour? Use your imagination, the sky's the limit.

Yarn Store Road Trippin' to Shall We Knit?

Well hello there. I've been away from this space for a week enjoying or trying to enjoy cottage life. It's been one of those cold, wet summers, feeling especially so after such a long winter and I was looking forward to hot days at the cottage with lots of swimming, blueberry picking and cook-outs. Not so much but it was still nice to slow things down for a week and get back to basics. I'll treat you to some pictures and stories tomorrow. Today though:

I've had in the back of my mind for a few months a little idea for this space. I thought-wouldn't it be great to feature local yarn stores as I came across them in my travels? I should have one of those signs for the back of our car "This car brakes for yarn stores".
I wonder if many of you are the same (if anyone knows where I can get such a sign email me!)
So 2 weeks ago I put my plan into action.

Waterloo has a great yarn store called Shall We Knit? and I think the best way to kick this idea of mine off is by featuring the store in my own backyard.
The owner, Karen Crouch, and I sat down for a chat, the notes from which, filled almost 3 pages in my notebook. It was difficult for me to stay on the topic of the store itself and not go merrily off in all knitterly directions and find myself comparing favourite sock yarns and dpns vs circular needles (I think we did but that's beside the point).
She's definitely found her niche in life and it's so inspiring to talk to people who are satisfied with their work. Their energy is catchy.
Shall We Knit? (SWK?) has been in existence for 7 years, 4 of those years located in New Hamburg ON before moving to Waterloo when the opportunity came about for a bigger building. Sorry New Hamburg-we stole your yarn store.
Karen carries a multitude of different yarns including but not limited to: Cascade, Koigu, indigodragonfly, Spud and Chloe, Noro and on and on.

There is a whole room dedicated to sock knitting. Imagine my delight :)

Karen offers a host of classes from learning how to knit or crochet to advanced technique classes. You will find a room dedicated to the art of spinning, containing therein fleece and drop spindles and more. SWK? has become a destination shop for knitters and crocheters alike who travel to Waterloo just to visit the store.

Her library is extensive as Karen believes knowledge and resources are important assets to have on hand. She stays current on what's going on in the world of Ravelry, techniques like dying yarn, what colours are hot for the season and fashion trends and incorporates this info when she buys for the store.
Community is important at SWK? from the Thursday night Spin and Chat sessions to the Friday night Knit and Chat to the celebration of Worldwide Knit in Public Day. She even has an answer for local fly fishing people who come in asking about supplies for fly-tying.
So there you have it. My local yarn store. If you live near Waterloo, ON or will be passing by I encourage you to come check it out. You'll find Karen at 11 Willow Street.
You'll find me in the sock room petting the wool.

Yarnalong with Socks and Book Candy

Joining Ginny today at Small Things blog for Yarnalong:

Knitting: Cable and Garter socks, pattern found in Betsey Lee McCarthy's Knit Socks! book using Nova Yarns Value Collection Sock wool.
Reading: The Wanderer by Robyn Carr. I hesitated a minute to admit that I was reading something so ordinary (my apologies to Robyn Carr). I don't know why. We're all friends here ;) I love to read books about gardening and knitting, uplifting books about bettering myself, my family, my parenting etc.
But sometimes I like a little book candy. A little ordinary grocery store paperback novel that requires little thought or effort on my part because I am tired most days when I fall into bed and this is the time I have to read. Is this you too? Do you sometimes just like some easy reading? A story for the sake of a story. This is me right now.
What about you? What are you knitting? reading?

A Knitted Sock to Keep Me Going

I think I've got myself all sorted out and am well on my way to a wildly coloured knitted sock to keep me busy for the next little while.

Do you think the cable pattern combined with the different colours of this wool is too much going on? Or is it just so wild it kind of works? I can't decide but I can tell you I'm feeling almost giddy to have wool and needles and pattern and skill level all coming together.
This sock-knitting is going to keep me busy as I head back to Haliburton on Saturday to pick up The Boy from camp.
I have to stop by my local yarn store this week to pick up 5mm circular needles so I can finally finish that poor Jackaroo. It will be coming with me on Monday for our week at the cottage. I don't tend to get a whole lot of knitting done on these vacations but if it's the only thing I bring along it's bound to see some progress.
The Green Tea Raglan is still on the needles but I wasn't feeling it lately so it's been rested in my knitting basket while I suffer from knitting Attention Deficit Disorder. I've been all over the place lately.
I can hear my husband talking to the neighbour who is trying to mow his lawn and my daughter is running wild through the neighbourhood so I had better go. I'll be back again tomorrow for Yarnalong.

The Quilted Table Runner-a tutorial

The urge to make SOMETHING seized me about 2 weeks ago. I wanted to make something quilted to use up some of my sewing scraps and the materials had to all come from my stash, I decided. I love a challenge you see and also didn't want to spend any money if it could be helped.
This quilted table runner is what came of this crazy urge.

Not very crazy, a quilted table runner, but useful and it looks good (in my humble opinion anyway!)
I took a few pictures and thought I'd post a little tutorial in case you were interested in making your own version.
My table runner is 48" long and 16" wide. I checked out my stash and found a couple of fabrics that I thought would work together and cut a bunch of strips 16 1/2" long and either 2 or 3" wide.

I alternated plain and patterned strips and sewed them all together using a 1/4" seam.
Once I had the top sheet sewn I ironed all the seams flat in the direction of the darker fabric so that you can't see a shadow of the extra fabric from the right side.

I used a piece of natural cotton batting I had lying around and laid the top sheet on top and cut the batting to fit.
Next I found a piece of fabric to use as the backing. It doesn't matter what you choose as you won't be able to see the backing fabric when the quilted side is up. I had some denim with cherries all over it so I used that.
I pinned all the layers together and starting in the middle I used the "stitch in the ditch" method of quilting it using my sewing machine.

*Stitch in the ditch just means you quilt along the seams of the top sheet so you don't actually see the quilting stitches.
You can use whatever method of quilting you like and be a little fancier than I was if the spirit moves you.
Next trim all the edges clean so the layers are even.
I made my own bias tape for the binding using some navy flannel I had, cut into 2" strips.
Use your iron to iron the strips in half, then open them up and iron each raw edge so it folds into the middle.
Make you strips long enough to go the whole length of each side with an inch hanging over the edges. You can sew pieces together to make it long enough.
Open up one fold of your bias tape and with the backing side of your table runner facing you, pin it to the edge, raw edges even.
Sew along the fold line you ironed into the bias tape. Do this for two opposing sides of the runner.
Trim the 3 layers of the runner (not the bias tape) to about 1/8" from the seam.

With the right side of the runner facing you, fold the bias tape over and pin it in place to cover up the raw edges. Hand sew this seam using an invisible stitch. Trim the excess tape even with the runner.

(you can kind of see the end of the binding tape sticking out near the edge of the picture)

Once that's done repeat the above steps with the remaining 2 sides of the runner. On each end of these bits of bias tape, fold the raw ends in and sew.

with the backing side up

Quilted side up

Last step-admire your work. Put it on your table with a mason jar full of flowers and give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.
I hope my instructions are clear and make sense. If not, let me know and I'd be happy to clarify any point.

strawberry pie and a quilted table runner

Joining Taryn today at Wooly Moss Roots blog for Gratitude Sunday:

Feeling grateful today and this week for:
:: extra time spent with my daughter. She went to a day camp this week close to work and I was able to have her stay with me until her camp started and then walk her over. At the end of the day I walked back over and picked her up, then finished my work while listening to her tales of the day.

:: arthritis in my back. An odd thing to be grateful for to be sure but it's flare-up was the catalyst to a long awaited change in my weekdays. I manage the receiving end of things at an outdoor store and have been feeling the need for a change for awhile. Efforts to find a job elsewhere have come to nothing. It was the arthritis in my back that forced me to go to my employer and rework my responsibilities so that I no longer deal with the heavy lifting and only work 2 days a week. A blessing to be sure.

:: hope for new beginnings.

:: a safe trip to and from delivering The Boy to Scout camp.

:: strawberry pie cooling in the kitchen

:: finishing the quilted table runner I started last week. I made it out of scraps from my stash and it looks awesome. Now I'm all fired up to make something else.

:: getting the needles and therefore the gauge right on the new pair of socks I'm knitting. Love love love the colour.

:: waking up this morning and going through my day not feeling exhausted and counting the hours until bedtime. It is so nice to feel rested for once.
Wishing you a peaceful, productive week. Knit on zen mother!

Knittin' and Road-Trippin'

Today was road-trip day. We had to take the boy up to Scout camp at the Haliburton Scout Reserve which is a bum-numbing 700 km round trip. The scenery is beautiful once you get off the main highway but 80kms of nothing but trees and rocks loses it's novelty after awhile.

The Scout troop he belongs to is so well-organized (at least from this parent's point of view) and the leaders are great at, well, leading these kids. While my husband went off to talk to the leaders I got a chance to watch how my Aspergian interacts with kids other than his usual friends. He does alright I must say and seems to fit in pretty well, joking and talking to the kids and looking relaxed and happy. I think he'll have a good time.
The trip back was quiet-just my husband and me and no one nattering on in the backseat. That kid can talk! We stopped for ice cream at the Thornton Ice Cream Parlour. I don't know too many ice cream parlours around and this is one I remember stopping at when I was a kid. It's in a tiny little place called, appropriately enough, Thornton.
We stopped again for an early poutine dinner at a little place tucked in a nook on a tiny street in Orangeville. You've got to love french fries drowning in gravy with cheese curds!
 It's nice to drive in peace and quiet and stop when you want to or just keep going.

For car knitting I brought along a big ball of possibly alpaca wool that my friend picked up for me in Peru. There was a bit of a language barrier when she bought it so she's not 100% sure it's alpaca. It's not hairy like alpaca usually is but it feels lovely and smells like natural fibres as opposed to acrylic.
I have Betsy Lee McCarthy's book Knit Socks! and I decided to give her Diamonds and Cables pattern a go with this possibly-alpaca wool and a pair of US 2/ 2.75mm dpns. I hate hate hate knitting a gauge swatch and instead just grab the needles I think will work and start knitting. If I like the tension I'm getting I keep going, if not I rip it out and start again with new needles. This is how I roll. I tell myself this method takes just as long as knitting a gauge swatch and if I guess right I'm ahead of the game and have a bunch of sock knitted instead of a useless piece of square knitting. So having said all that and knowing that many of you are cringing and getting all knotty in the stomach at my brazen ways I knit the ribbing and started on the pattern and figured out the needles were way too big for this fine wool. And of course I hadn't brought along other needles, I was feeling so confident.
The pride before the fall.
But fear not!! There is a knitting store in Haliburton where I picked up not new needles but a whole new ball of sock wool! My logic might be slightly skewed but keep in mind I'd been looking at rocks and trees for 100kms by then and it was 29C outside and our car is not air conditioned.

Isn't that a great colour??

The wool is from Nova yarns. It's called Nova Value Collection Sock Print and is 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon.

And this is the new sock I knitted. I think the needles are still too big and I'm going to rip it out again and try once more with 2.5mm dpns and see if that tightens things up. 

Once I get the needles and tension thing all sorted out I'll be ready for next Saturday when we do this all over again to pick him up. Maybe I'll have a whole pair done to show you after 9 hours in the car and 700kms! Knit on zen mother!

Gratitude Sunday on Monday July 7th

Joining Taryn today at Wooly Moss Roots blog for Gratitude Sunday:
Feeling grateful today for:
-strawberry-rhubarb jam

-Warm July weather, not stifling hot weather
-belated birthday celebrations for a certain 13 year old boy

-lunch under the maple tree
-sleeping until I'm done
-playing in the dirt, weeding and sneaking in 2 more perennials before the afore-mentioned stifling hot weather arrives.
-a long-awaited change in my day to day schedule. A little less working and a little more time to pursue my own interests.
What about you? What are you grateful for this Monday?

Green Tea Raglan and The Kazidin Method

Joining Ginny today at Small Things blog for Yarnalong:

Knitting away at the Green Tea Raglan. Not sure how this is going to go but I sure am enjoying it right now.
What I'm reading: The Kazidin Method for Parenting your Defiant Child. Parenting in this house has always been a challenge, what with the OCD from my husband and the K-man's Asperger's Disorder. Our daughter has always been what I defined as spirited and high-energy. We are still in the process of assessing her for something else, but it's slow-going. In the meantime we're dealing with some challenging behaviour that is making me want to pull out my hair.
I have read a truckload of parenting books on Autism Spectrum Disorder and general parenting books and at one point threw my hands up and said "No more!". However dealing with several melt-downs a day from a 10 year old had me scrambling for all my resources-library, internet, other parents. In my search I kept coming across this book: The Kazidin Method for Parenting your Defiant Child so I'm giving it a go. I find all parenting books boil down to the same concepts presented in different ways-love your child, spend good quality time with them, praise them for the good stuff, feed them well and make sure they get enough sleep. This one does not disappoint and so far (I'm on chapter 3) he takes the praising bent. I've been using it with good results over the last day or so.
It's not the most exciting read but it has to be done. The chick-lit can wait another week or two :)

This is the wool I'm using to knit up the Green Tea Raglan. It looks great in moss stitch.

My neighbours moved away today, probably because of the crazy lady next door chucking wool on bushes and taking pictures.

And rocks.
What about you? What are you knitting and reading?

Canada Day-rainbows, reading, water and knitting.

This is where I was this weekend. We found ourselves with the Canada Day long weekend off so we headed up to the cottage for a few days. The weather was hot and sunny and I think we spent most our time either in the lake or eating. 

I also spent a fair amount of time here staring out at the lake or the kids. Both equally interesting for different reasons.

I finished We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickenson-Rich on the weekend and found a couple of other books lurking on our bookshelves that I began. Underneath the old book is one by Sharon Butala, a woman who finds herself in the middle of the prairie of south-western Saskatchewan on a ranch with her new husband and not much required of her. I've only read about 2 or 3 chapters but it sounds like it's about her observations of nature and her place in it. As a family, our happy place is our cottage and I find myself drawn to all these stories about people living the simple life surrounded by one form or nature of another. It was hard to leave the book behind when it was time to go home but when one has to carry everything in and out of the cottage on one's back these choices have to made.
The wool is the scratchy dutch wool that I've been trying to find a pattern for. I realized there was no way I had enough to knit what I had in mind for the Herne rustic recipe pattern sweater and as we drove towards the cottage on Saturday morning I desperately scrolled through all the knitting patterns stored on my ipod Touch and stumbled across the Green Tea Raglan. It's a very simple, moss-stitched sweater intended for summery bamboo wool but I think made a bit bigger would be good as a vest-affair over a long-sleeved t-shirt. It may have been desperation at the prospect of 3 days without a knitting project that made me even begin this or maybe my love for anything moss-stitched, I don't know. I'm an eternal optimist though and my vision may just work. This might explain why I have 3 sweaters laying around my house that just don't work for one reason or another. Patient I am not.

We had a big thunderstorm during dinner on Sunday night and when it was all over, there was the obligatory rainbow.

On Monday we left, sadly, and drove as far as my parents who are sort of half way between the cottage and home. They live near Lake Rosseau in Muskoka. We promised the kids a swim after dinner and here is the beach on Lake Rosseau. It's a very different kind of cottaging, this Muskoka cottaging. There were lots of big boats and teenagers hanging out on the docks. Tourists everywhere. But the beach was nice and it was a great way to wrap up a busy day. This morning we left right after breakfast and drove through more rain to get home.
So, happy Canada Day to the Canadians and happy July 1st to everyone else.