Spring is in the Air – Not!

Last Sunday, I started some seeds with the kids. I couldn’t believe how fast they started sprouting. The kids are so excited. This is the first time I’ve started anything successfully from seeds. Those peat pellets are amazing!

Up until now, the weather has been nice and spring-like. We haven’t had snow since the end of February. So naturally, tomorrow the forecast is calling for some wet snow. They’re forecasting a cold week in general – wee.

In other news, I couldn’t make it to the Yarn Factory Outlet sale in Listowel this year because of the number of hours we’ve had to work the past few months. Luckily, a friend of mine could go and was willing to pick up some goodies for me. There was only one thing of interest to me – Bernat GLOW IN THE DARK yarn. I scored big time!

I really hope they’re not serious about discontinuing this yarn as the website indicates. I haven’t heard any other news supporting that. I want to make more glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs for my niece and nephew. My kids also have some ideas of "other things" they want to see glow in the dark.

Gazebo

We finally got a gazebo! We bought it off a family nearby who needed to get rid of it so our timing was very fortuitous. Although we bought it last Sunday, we didn’t get around to putting up the curtains on it until today. I like the double curtain idea. The inner curtain is just a mesh for insect protection and the outer one is opaque for more privacy. I can’t wait to use it.

I was really worried about drilling into our concrete patio to anchor it. My husband went to the Home Depot and ended up talking to a nice lady there who told him she just anchored hers with cinder blocks since you’re supposed to put it away in the winter. I like this idea much better. It also allows us the flexibility to move it elsewhere on the property should we change our minds.

Now I just need a patio set to put under it.

St. George’s Cross Baby Blanket Finished!

It’s done! At long last, it’s done!

It’s not that it was hard, on the contrary. It was just a lack of time that prevented progress. I’m pleased with the results and how flat my mitred corners lie.

The final dimensions are approximately 30” x 36”. It’s not blocked. I mean, why bother when it’s going to be stretched over a baby carrier or pulled by tiny fists or chewed on by tiny gums.

To recap, I picked up stitches all around the edge of the St. George’s cross portion using 4 circular needles.

I kept knitting using directional mitred increases at the corners and incorporating the Inverness Diamond pattern into the blue border.

I ended by using an I-cord edging which was useful in binding off simultaneously. What do I mean by this? When I was ready to bind off (this begins at a corner in my case), I cast on three stitches on the left needle where I already had stitches. *Knit the first two stitches individually, slip the third, knit the next stitch on the left needle. Insert the left needle in front of last two stitches on the right needle and knit them together. Pass all three stitches back onto the left needle. Repeat from *. By doing this, you are casting off your stitches one at a time but creating a smooth I-cord edging while you’re doing it. This is my modified version of a method in Nicky Epstein’s book, Knitting Over The Edge: Unique Ribs Cords Appliques Color Eclectic - The Second Essential Collection of Decorative Borders.

To neatly finish off the I-cord edging, I used Kitchener Stitch to graft the beginning to the end seamlessly. Aside from the knitty link I have here for the Kitchener Stitch, there are many internet resources like YouTube that demonstrate it.

Yup, I have to say, I’m quite pleased with the results.

She’s back - and wants to thank everyone!

Holy cow! I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I’ve blogged. Thank you all for your patience. This is the first week-end my husband and I have been at home together in quite a while. I forgot what it was like to spend time as a family. My husband’s trip went well. While he was gone, I got sick and have been sick and sleep deprived for the past two weeks. I finally got some rest (and some knitting done – thank god!) this week-end.

I would like to thank lara griffiths, cornchowder, and Domie’s mom for nominating me on February 24 and 25, 2009 for a Kreativ Blogger Award. I would also like to thank hopieknits for nominating me on Feb. 9, 2009 for a Kreativ Blogger Award. That makes 32 people (8 per nomination) that I would be required to nominate. I would like to thank Mr. Spooky for tagging me on Jan. 28, 2009 and Steffi for tagging me on Oct. 3, 2008. I would have to tag eight people (four people for each). That brings the total number of people I would have to nominate/tag up to 40. I believe that covers most of the list of bloggers in my right side bar. I was so touched by the supportive comments I received on my “Venting” post, and honoured by the three subsequent Kreativ Blogger Award nominations I received on that post, that I was tempted to break my own rule of “I don’t do chains (tag, mail, etc.)” because I didn’t want to insult the wonderful people that nominated me. But to break that rule would have been unfair to Steffi, Mr. Spooky, and hopieknits to whom I had already explained that “I don’t do chains” and who were very kind and understanding about it. Thank you all for reading my blog and being so supportive.

I’m here with “Rocky” (one of my daughter’s rocks) and some fresh guacamole my husband just made from a Julia Child recipe. My daughter said Rocky wanted to watch me work on the computer. My husband arranged the corn chips to (in his words), “…look like the sunflower that you are”. They’re so cute!

I had to show you the beautiful gifts my hubby brought me from his trip. The hotel his course was held at overlooks Harvard and MIT. Naturally, the tote bag became a knitting bag. The silver and purple bead earrings are awesome!

The rat race begins again tomorrow. Two weeks to a very tight deadline on March 30 so we can’t take time off to spend March break with our children. The two weeks following that being a pretty intense time with inspectors on site.

Venting

Sorry, no pictures today. I’m just venting. I have nothing to show because I have had almost no time to knit since work is sucking our life away at the moment. I know it’s only temporary but every time we go through it, it seem like an eternity. My husband is working the “insane” hours while I’m doing the only “very heavy” hours since I’m taking care of the kids most times. That’s okay; I’d rather have it that way. That’s the only reason I managed to get any knitting done yesterday and it felt so good. That and that I bought some International Delight Southern Butter Pecan to go in my coffee – mmmm, flavoured coffee and knitting.

At the end of this coming week, hubby has to go away on a course for two days. He’s extending it to a third day since he’s never visited this place before. As a result, I’m also going to miss my yoga class which is my only other stress outlet aside from knitting. My other crafts and hobbies don’t provide me with the same de-stressing ability, not that I’ve had time to touch them anyway. I always say I’m grumpier when I haven’t had time to knit, can you imagine me by the end of Saturday?

I’m drinking a glass of red wine and watching the third Lord of the Rings movie while I do this; it helps. Any time I’ve not blogged for a while, the sole cause is work. I’ve always been afraid of venting on my blog because I was afraid some of the people I work with might discover my complaints. Oh well, I guess I'm past caring (to a certain extent). I just had to vent.

Fearless Tobogganers

Sadly, my very busy work schedule has infringed upon my precious free knitting time. I’ve only managed to knit one day this past week and not much the week before and boy does my overall mood show it. I get pretty cranky when I don’t get my knitting stress relief. So today, I’m going to share a couple of shots of the recent past.

All hats in these pictures were hand knitted by me. Unfortunately, you can’t see the details in my hubby’s hat but it’s from Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Patterns for Knitting. The pattern is called Harald.

The hats my daughter and I are wearing were inspired by Anna Zilboorg’s 45 Fine & Fanciful Hats to Knit. Mine is the Egyptian style but I put in my own motifs. On my daughter’s, I used the motif that was in the book for cone hats, but I added earflaps with I-cord ties, which none of the hats in the book have.

My son’s hat is my own original design which I covered in previous blog posts under the labels “dragon” and “dragon scarf”.

Over the past couple of weeks, virtually all our snow has melted, although I hear we will have a snowstorm on Wednesday. Winter is far from over.

And the Mitre Goes On

So far so good. The pattern I chose for the border is called the Inverness Diamond from my 365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar. The pattern can be found on the December 13 page.

I’m doing directional increases to make the mitre while avoiding creating any holes or gaps. Translation: the increased stitch on the right corner will slant to the right, the increased stitch on the left corner will slant to the left.

To make the right slanting increase, I brought the tip of the left hand needle under the strand between the stitches on the left hand and right hand needles, from back to front. Then I knit this loop (that I created by picking up the strand) through the front.

To make the left slanting increase, I brought the tip of the left hand needle under the strand between the stitches on the left hand and right hand needles, from front to back. Then I knit this loop (that I created by picking up the strand) through the back.