Pumpkin Sunrise

Good morning! I have made some steady progress on the fair isle hat , and I am loving the pattern as it slowly emerges row by row. It's also nice to not be making mistakes.  I've hit my colorwork groove! Oh and I posted yesterday about my yellow shawl. I continue to read my book from last week, The Daughter and I'm enjoying it overall.  The plot at times is quite far fetched but I'm going with it.  The writing is good and solid, the mystery over her daughter's disappearance affects many people and reading the family dynamics is fascinating. I picked up this book, The Power of Habit  after hearing it on some podcasts.  Since I'm a fond lover of positive habit creating and tracking progress, I thought this would be an interesting read.  Lots of the writing reminds me of some of my university psych classes way back when.  Good stuff! What are you knitting and reading this week? Joining Ginny and Frontier Dreams

Last week, I had the photo shoot for my Dandelion Daze Shawl .  I even used a tripod this time - getting all professional in my photo skills.  I cannot wait to wear this when the weather gets chilly!! The pattern  called for fingering weight wool but I decided to use lace weight.  I find wearing lots of fingering weight (over 500 yards) around my neck to be "heavy". Lace weight wool solves that problem. This shawl is light and airy and quite warm! As always, blocking wires and pinning out the shawl makes all those yarn overs stand out. Ravelry notes are here

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments    in the comment section with a link to your blog. Victoria Park, London Ontario My husband and I went to London, Ontario to visit his parents as well as his brother and sister-in-law.  I am exhausted from the long car ride up and back.  However, we has some serious Hamilton musical listening time.  If I could hone my rapping skills, I'd be singing to a heck of a lot more of the songs.  I'm practicing.  We played a few songs for my in-laws while driving here and there for dinners out and I think my mother-in-law loved it, she was toe tapping along. hey, what? telephones!  Look at how CLEAN they all look because they are rarely used!  We ate out (a lot!) and did very little walking.  So you know that I'll be writing up a "recovery diet from over indulging". It's good to be home and tonight I'll

I am from a creative family.  My mother sewed our clothes when we were little and while I was unappreciative at the time because of the sensitivity of how rough the fabric was against my skin (and I cried buckets of tears until I adjusted to the scratchiness) I now know that her crafting skills gave me my creative skills.  My mother could: sew, knit, crochet, quilt and do various needle crafts.  She learned her skills through books - she would have loved the internet and the immediacy of information. My father is also creative.  He does woodworking and dabbles in photography.  He catches with his camera, birds that visit his pond on his daily walks.  Whenever one of us buys a new camera, there is lots to talk about. We eagerly look at photos and discuss what was happening when the moment was captured. My sister has amazing quilting skills and sewing skills that I admire.  She loves the process of making the same item repeatedly and sells her items to friends and sometimes doe

Good morning!  I have been busy with the fair isle hat and I finally (!) stopped making mistakes.  Well I think I've stopped making mistakes.  Phew.  I must say that sometimes I am amazed at what will get me to rethink my skills.  But I'm happy to report my faulty start was all due to my attention to detail and reading my color selections correctly.  I'm thoroughly enjoying the fair isle knitting! I'm making steady progress on my cowl.  I don't want the knitting to end!  However I am getting close to finishing and will probably cast off over the weekend if not sooner.  Easy knitting is happy knitting and best of all, I don't have to think much on that project. I am half way through The Daughter  and like it overall.  It's a bit suspenseful and a lot of questioning how well we know our family members.  I'm interested in relationship dynamics so I'm glad I picked this book off of a display table in a bookstore. What are you reading and knitti

I finished this scarf turned into a cowl last week and already gifted it to my son when I met him for lunch.  He requested something in red.  Originally I was thinking scarf but then I suggested a cowl to him and he liked the idea.  I found some red wool while on the mad hunt for "red".  I wanted a blackish red and that doesn't seem to be too popular out there or I'm not shopping the right places.  I didn't want to order on line because red is an unreliable color on computer screens (at least for me).  So once I had the wool then I hunted for a pattern.  This  lovely scarf pattern  popped up in my search and I liked the repetitive design.  Unfortunately one skein of sock yarn doesn't make a long scarf, another strong reason that I sewed the ends by kitchener stitch.  Easy peasy and he loves the cowl!

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments    in the comment section with a link to your blog. How was your weekend?  I have to confess, I cannot get enough of the leaves changing.  I've been stopping and looking and of course photographing.  Gorgeous and wonderful!  My weekend was nice and we had a tiny adventure yesterday.  We drove over hills and mountains to the amusement park which was hosting a craft and art festival.  The drive itself was fun.  The best park of Saturday was the weather, there was a fine drizzle all day long.  So the crowds were not manic, just regular crowds.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely. While at the festival, I had the BEST doughnut made by a firefighter company....seriously I died and went to doughnut heaven :) I asked the lady what she recommended and she said everyone wanted the powder sugar and cinnamon doughnut.  Well they were right

Dear October: I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that you are here.  I've waited for you patiently over the summer months while extended heat waves lingered.  But now you have arrived and so far you have been glorious. The maple trees are losing their leaves yellow and brown first, the red just starting to appear.  Each year I'm captured by the beauty.  The mornings are crisp and sometimes chilly and once again fleece coats are donned before a quick run to retrieve the newspaper. At first yellow is my favorite color, then red, then orange, then the browns and purples.  I guess I like all the colors that you bring to me.  The mums are in full bloom being show offs now that the summer flowers have faded away.  I like their attitude.  While car riding, the rolling hills on the countryside display the changes leaves.  Oh so pretty. I get sad thinking of how my after dinner walks will be coming to an end during your month.  Each walk is numbered as the days g

Good morning!  I'm happy to report that I finished that large novel, The Once and Future King  on Monday.  What a long book, technically that is four books published under one title but whatever, it counts as one large book on Goodreads.  I enjoyed the story and being in the land of Camelot.  This book was outside my usual genre reading and I'm proud that I stretched my tastes. The book I'm currently reading, The Daughter , is  mystery thriller kind of book.  So far, it's quite tame and not nearly as long as the previous book.  I only just started this novel on Tuesday so I don't have a formed opinion. I started a hat for my holiday knitting!  I am loving knitting on tiny needles with thin yarn.  Hopefully, I'll have some serious progress to share next week. What are you knitting and reading this week? Joining Ginny and Frontier Dreams

This is my eighth known baby sweater according to Ravelry.  I've knit this sweater pre ravelry so I know there are others about.  Each time I make this sweater, I forget some stuff and then I alter some directions to make it as seamless as possible. I knit the wee little sleeves in the round and ingeniously picked up through the back edge the stitches that create the body...if you were sitting beside me you would be able to see what I did.  So I guess you'll have to trust me when I say, I'm sometimes a genius! However this sometimes a genius made some rookie mistakes and started the yoke three times!  Yes, I was not in my knitting zen state of mind.  Oh well, lucky for me, I caught the mistake and righted the wrong. Phew. The other little glitch was I dived into deep stash (again pre-ravelry days) and started the sweater not reading the content of the yarn.  I thought I was knitting with a blend but nope,  I was knitting with 100% cotton which is not kind to my

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments  in the comments section of the blog. Another weekend come and gone.  And we are safely into October days where the days are cooler and the nights come faster.  I love it.  Yesterday, I had the craziest idea to finish The Once and Future King  by Tuesday night.  I am quite ambitious in this goal. My other crazy idea was to finish the red scarf (which will be turned into a cowl) by Monday night.  So the imagined race is on!  I am knitting whenever I have a pocket of time and I am reading as well.  Today at the kitchen table I did both at the same time with some challenges.  So far I haven't made a knitting mistake and I'm putting a huge dent in my reading! Call me optimistic but I think I'll make both self imposed goals :) Yesterday we started Christmas shopping (I know!) but there was an incredible sale at a depart