Knitting In The North

Yarn Along

 

 

I've been feeling a bit restless in my knitting this week.  Life seems so crazy, and I'm hurtling through one school project after another, that I felt like I needed some "instant gratification".  Quite a while ago, a friend was fed up with her own project, and put it in a yarn swap we both took part in .  She was working on socks, and had one sock finished and the other underway.  I snatched it up, thinking I would probably rip it all out and do something different with the beautiful, hand dyed yarn.  This week, though, I pulled it out, ripped it back a bit to figure out where she had been in the pattern, dug out some needles, and carried on.  The pattern is Spring Forward, and I believe the yarn is from an Etsy seller who is no longer dyeing yarn.  Which is a shame, because this is lovely.  Now the big question will be whether or not I get to keep these socks, or if they are meant for someone else...

 

I've heard from many people, in the Yarn Along and elsewhere, that A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an awesome book, so I had to pick it up.  I haven't actually started it yet - I'm waiting until I finish the school project I'm currently working on.  I find it very effective to have some kind of reward dangling like a carrot in front of me, and at the moment this book is my carrot.  How do you motivate yourself to get things done?

Sweet Sunday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yarn Along: KAL

 

 

I do love me a good KAL!  As soon as I heard about the Stash Sweater KAL in the Stash & Burn group on Ravelry, I was in.  The idea is to knit a sweater in the next two months from stash yarn, which is always an idea I can get behind.  It's inspired me to get Liam's sweater out of the basket and back to the top of the priority list - I'm sure you can imagine his reaction.  He's thrilled to see me knitting His Blue Sweater again.

 

I did manage to finish Lonesome Dove in time last week.  Once I got into the story, it was actually pretty good (probably why it won a Pulitzer Prize...), although I think it's better suited as lazy day reading than get-through-it-quickly-so-I-can-write-about-it reading, if you know what I mean.  Now that that project is done, I've turned my reading attention to Making It.  I love this book!  It's full of great suggestions for things you can make and do at home.  I particularly appreciate the way it's organized - the book is broken down into daily, weekly, monthly and every so often projects, which I think is really useful.  I was a fan of their previous book, The Urban Homestead, but this one is even better.  If you are at all interested in doing things yourself, I highly recommend you check this one out.  And as much as I love and support my library, this is one I'm going to have to own for myself.

Following The Trail...

 

 

When I'm trying to sneak in a bit of schoolwork during the day, and it suddenly occurs to me that the house is strangely quiet, I find it a very good idea to stop what I'm doing and look for Liam.  By following the trail he leaves behind him, I generally track him down...

 

 

 

I suppose I'm thankful that he knows how to entertain himself, and enjoys using his imagination...

 

Yarn Along

 

 

I was so happy this morning when I realized it was Wednesday, and I could join in with the weekly Yarn Along!  I don't have a whole lot to show for it - here is my Echo Beach, in Noro Sekku.  I am more than a little in love with Kieran Foley's designs.  There is another one I have queued up, just waiting, that I love even more than this one.  See how restrained I am, not abandoning poor Echo.  This project is pretty slow going, thanks to the lace weight yarn and smallish needles, but I keep reminding myself of Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice to knit complex patterns with fine yarn if you are a knitter on a budget.  I'm practicing frugality, that's what I'm doing!  (Don't be surprised if, next week, I show off a completely different, bulky weight pattern.  All this discipline is making me long for some instant gratification, and I have just the right project in mind...)

My reading at the moment is less than thrilling for me, I will confess.  As part of one of my classes, I am learning to assess fiction, and am required to read several novels, which sounds heavenly (and it is, really).  However, we were specifically asked to read something from a different genre than usual, and since I have several nice old men at the library who read Every. Single. Western. that we get in each month, I thought I'd try a western.  I did first look for something on the shorter side, but then one of my co-workers suggested Lonesome Dove, and I was swayed by the sticker declaring that it was a Pulitzer Prize winner.  I'm only a few chapters in, and finding it slow going, but I hope it will pick up as the characters develop.  If nothing else, I will choose to appreciate a class I am learning a lot in, and I'm sure I'll find something to enjoy, even in the Westerns.  It's a book, right?  What's not to love?

 

Birthday Boy

 

 

Although Liam turned three last week, we celebrated the big 3 today with him, and a few of our family friends.  I really love having a theme for parties, so when I discovered an Eric Carle Birthday Party kit a month or so ago I knew that was it.  Liam LOVES Eric Carle books, and one of his favourite is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so that is what we went with.

 

 

The kit came with paper hats, a cardboard birthday banner, as well as goodie bags and stickers.  It also had a book filled with ideas for a themed party, that were all too complicated for me to deal with.  We had a do-it-yourself helium balloon kit, and Katie obliged us with custom artwork for each one.  I planned a couple of simple crafts, but we ended up just playing and visiting, although Katie did also offer her facepainting services.

 

 

 

I baked cupcakes last night, and this morning Stuart helped me quickly decorate them before our guests arrived.  The sun shone, we played outside, everyone was happy.  And most important - the birthday boy felt loved and special (and even tried out his new run bike).  I suppose that's what it's all about, right?

 

 

360

 

 

Life, again, has become crazy busy.  I seem to be saying this a lot lately, don't I?  Since I've missed even the weekly yarn along in the last two weeks, I thought I'd write a quick update - a 360 degree view of life right now.

• Schoolwork is occupying every spare moment I have right now.  I believe I may have been a tad ambitious when I signed up for three distance courses over the summer semester.  I'm keeping up, but I feel the dread of falling behind looming.  I hate that.  The schoolwork is good, though.  You can tell you're meant to work in a library when you find an Intro to Libraries course fascinating...

 

• Stuart has been riding the bike we bought him for his last birthday. Now that we're all on wheels, we've been riding to a local park a few times a week, as a family.  It's great to get us all outside together, and it's really been helping me build my confidence on the scary bicycle.

 

• This week, I officially managed my first "truck-free" day.  As in, I rode my bike (with Liam in the trailer) where I needed to go, instead of driving.  Not that I just stayed home all day.  (Although that would be nice...)

 

• Liam turned three this week.  He's suddenly turned into a preschooler - it's crazy.  Overnight, he's started doing things like cutting with scissors, drawing and painting actual pictures, arguing with his mom, and reciting the alphabet and numbers.  His party is this Sunday - I'm planning a Very Hungry Caterpillar party, since it's one of his favourite books.

 

• Having no babies in the house is something different for me!  This morning, my nephew & his mom came for a visit.  He's nine months old, and so busy.  Funny how a house becomes not child-proof so quickly.  But I really love being able to get rid of so many things that we've always kept "for the next one".

 

• Flowers that are pink and yellow at the same time are my favourite.  The dahlia (above) was at the grocery store the other day, and leaped into my cart when I wasn't looking.  It makes me very happy.  Sometimes I find snapdragons this colour, too.  They're even better, because I can make the dragon roar, which makes Liam laugh.

 

• Katie was honoured at her school award ceremony last night, with a Principal's list academic award.  That means she got all A's (and one B) this year, which is huge for her first year of high school.

 

• A guy I work with is directing a performance of "As You Like It".  I'm going to get tickets tomorrow, and Stuart & I are going to have an actual date night.  Not just shopping at Costco kid-free, which is our usual date night.

 

• Brian is turning into an electronic whiz.  He went to a garage sale last weekend with $5, and came home with a TV, an adding machine and a broken DVD player.  He's been having lots of fun taking things apart.

 

• I was knitting Citron with some Noro Sekku that I bought in a fit of needing something yellow.  Then, I saw the pattern Echo Beach, and had to rip out my Citron to cast on for that, instead.  It's slowly, slowly coming along, but the colour changes keep me entertained.

 

• Gwenyth is almost finished Kindergarten!  She still loves it, but thinks it's a lot of work.

 

• I went to my first library conference this week.  My library was holding it, so I got to spend a day in workshops, and I thought it was awesome!  So many exciting things to learn about, and I was introduced to the comic strip Unshelved.  Very funny, even for those strange people who don't think the library is the best thing since sliced bread.

 

• I'm still working on Liam's blue sweater, although not as quickly as he would like.  He gets very annoyed with me when he catches me working on Echo Beach, and says, "That's not my blue sweater!" in a very threatening and meaninful voice.  I'm so lucky to have such an observant child.

 

Wow, I had even more to say than I thought I did!  Did you manage to read all of that?  What's going on in your world these days?