Posts

Taking a Pause

Image
yarn that I bought while in Canada Sometimes I want to pause time, take a breath and remember everything I'm seeing and thinking.  This week is a pause week.  The weather has been brilliant.  Cool air, blue skies or cloudy skies, intermittent and glorious.  Lots of time to look out the windows and enjoy the riot of autumn colors.  I'm thrilled to be home and reunited with my bed, my kitchen and most of all my tender daily rituals that bring me joy.  Making coffee and drinking from my favorite mug early in the morning feels fuller and richer at my kitchen table.  Whenever I travel, I try to set that precious morning ritual stage but the location is different - hence the feeling that something is missing. Frodo!!!  Gah! Whenever I return home, I want to hug my country traffic.  I love how quickly I can get from point A to point B because of my rural hometown.  My kind of traffic is being behind a farm tractor hauling freshly cut corn husks (this happened after babysi

Knitting News

Image
Hello!  Oh, my knitting productivity has been grand, partly because the knitting projects are mostly short and sweet.  I also think I'm motivated by the beautiful fall weather.  I wish summer made me this happy but I guess I should be grateful for autumn and all of its glory.  The top photo is another finished hat  - I am finished with this hat pattern and using up the wool stash of odds and ends, for now.  Knitting for others creates joy and happiness in my heart. The purple hat  is finished and will be given to my sister for Christmas.  I do love this pattern (made three last year!).  If you are familiar with knitting in the round, want to try cables and try double pointed needles for creating the decreasing at the top of the hat, give this pattern a try.  Oh, there is chart reading too. The shawl is making steady progress, hopefully all the riot of color will even out when the lace section starts.  I do love green and purple together! While sitting with m

Weekends

Image
How was your weekend?  I only just arrived home a few hours ago from visiting my husband's family up in London Ontario.  The drive feels longer and longer the older I get, yet it's a bit faster now that more highways connect where we go.  Go figure. We had excellent traveling weather and even though it rained all day Saturday, we still had a great time seeing everyone, especially 'just because' visiting.   We were up in early September for my father in law's grave side service.  I'm glad we went up once more to establish some happy memories. Whenever we are visiting, we go to Chapters book store, I think they are now all Indigo owned but the Chapters sign is still outside so I'll stick with what they have advertised.  I love to find books that are in paperback in Canada but are still hardback in the US.  I picked up the latest Kate Morton's book, The Clockmaker's Daughter. I ate out way too much and need some boring home cooked food th

Around Here

Image
 I'm enjoying the colors evolving slowly on the new shawl I cast on.  I add stitch by stitch, row by row loving the greens and purples.  This is my meditative morning knitting at the toddler's house while I wait for her to wake up.  I love how knitting this starts my day to be awesome. Speaking of awesome, my week has been pretty good, even though I was under the weather at the beginning of the week.  However, a quick doctor visit for a minor infection has me feeling better and grateful for my health providers and for modern medicine.  I tell you, if I'd live during the pioneer days, I would have been dead by the age of eight without the invention of antibiotics... Thank you Alexander Fleming for finding penicillin. trying to capture the nest all week I managed to fit in a gym visit and a training session.  All good for me and my RA joints.  I don't like to exercise, but I do love how exercising makes me feel strong and healthy.  I also can sit and knit wi

Four Striped Hats

Image
hat project page My needles have been extremely productive, I'm loving it!  All of the hats are the same pattern called strib hat .  The pattern is easy to knit and lends to all color combinations.  I have been knitting from my odds and ends bag of worsted weight wools.  hat project page The hats are for gifts and I'm excited to see if the recipients like their hats. hat project page  Sitting with odds and ends of wools, planning out the striping, getting creative when the wool length was skimpy, made this knitter happy.  Best of all my scrap bag has been thinned out considerably.  I still have pinks and purples left over and maybe I'll make some more hats, just not now. I have other gift knitting yet to do. hat project page What have you been knitting and crafting this week?

Weekends

Image
a little blurry but a great beginning of a hat How was your weekend? About an hour ago, I picked up my Mac and foolishly clicked the 'install a new operating system' button and then had to wait a whole hour to write this post.  Gah!  Yesterday we drove to State College to visit our son and have a lunch out.  I did not take any photos of that, so you'll have to imagine us together.  It was nice to see him and spend the afternoon with him.  The best part of the day trip was all the knitting I did in the car.  I am making serious progress in my project finishing.  More on that later on in the week. Today, I did some cleaning and laundry, trying to put things back to where they belong in this house.  Vacuuming the house is a challenge with the dog/cat situation.  Neither animal likes the noise but I don't want them bumping into each other since Frodo loves to chase Holly still.  So I keep the cat in one room while Frodo runs where ever.  It seems to work. 

Creative Inspirations

Image
Thank you for all the wonderful comments on my blog post on creativity    I enjoyed reading all of your experiences with fostering creativity in your daily lives.  Don't you wish we could all get together, sit and create?  That would be neat. Today's post is feathering out that creative post.  Adding more details and exploring what inspires me.  As a knitter, I have been the kind of person who buys yarns because I like them.  I consider them my 'palette' to choose from when I am making new projects.  I rarely buy a pattern then seek a yarn, it happens but not very often. I tend to enter a yarn store and see what strikes my fancy.  I love fingering weight wool and lately I've been stocking up on DK wool  I tend to pick indie dyers or locally sourced wool when I'm on vacation.  I go in spurts when I purchase yarn - definitely more so in the fall and winter because those are the seasons for wool wearing. I have at my fingertips many choices to create,

Knitting News

Image
The last cowl has finally dried and now I can post a photo for the three of them.  I'm only creating one project page on Ravelry.  These cowls are delightfully soft and lush.  100% Alpaca wool is something to feel in the hands while knitting.  Also, the alpaca will give a nice drape when the cowl is worn. I know I swore off this pattern, but I have two more alpaca skeins that are begging me to make a fourth cowl.  I also need to make one more in pink for a holiday gift for my dog groomer/dog trainer friend (mother of the toddler).  You've been forewarned. I started a new shawl this morning, yet another holiday gift.  I needed a super simple knit that needs minimal attention or notions in the bag for my work days when the toddler is napping.  I picked the spindrift shawl , which I knitted before and loved the pattern.  Last night, I started a hat with larger needles and hopefully I'll have a bit more common sense on sizing.  Love the red and gray wool toget