Clues!

So much for taking pictures with the camera you're not supposed to touch and not getting caught! That's my girl!My son, on the other hand, leads in with this comment, "I know I shouldn't have done this mom, but look, she's soooo cute!"
Now, I bet you thought that I was going to share with you all the progress that I've made on the Mystery Stole (you know, "clues"..."Mystery Stole") since the Yarn Harlot has finished hers and (in my mind) I was racing (and going to beat) her.
Yeah, well, no.
I have good reason though; just can't seem to come up with too many right now, but I will show you what I have been working on...

Yup, more Noro! It's Silk Garden that I bought up in Haliburton at Marty's this summer when we stayed up at a cottage for two weeks. (It distracted me from the Mystery Stole up there too!) It's a pattern from Knit Simple, with mitred squares building on I-cord; it is A LOT of fun! The sleeves are supposed to be just garter stitch; I don't see that happening. I think I've come up with an alternate plan incorporating the mitre detail all up the sleeve with the point over the back of my hand. My mom says that I never leave a pattern alone; always change something!
Now, because the MSIII is definately a 'work alone' kind of project and the Mitred Squares are fun, but not entirely 'group friendly'; I am still in need of something that I can work on when I'm with people that I actually want to talk to (aka Cast Offs). Here's a clue:

Any guesses?

Give the lurkers a chance Cast Offs (haha).

I hope to post again this weekend; I've got a few things that I need to get of my chest! And yes, that's another Clue!

I'm thankful for:

1) Sunny Days

2) Tracey

3) Hayley

4) Janet and her church friends (I sure hope it works out!)

5) PVR - Phyllis was denied!

Yes, I'm Thankful AND it's over!

Well, that's that for Thanksgiving Weekend 2007. It was a beautiful and jam packed weekend!

Last night after everybody left our house, my son went upstairs to do his homework...the homework that he put off from Friday, promising to complete Monday morning; with the understanding that "I" would not nag at him for the entire weekend; that he knows what has to be done and that it is his responsibility to complete it. But of course, things happen; something unexpected and way more fun comes along and the homework did indeed get left until the last minute. (again, truth be known, he comes by it honestly :o)...

So, after a fun, family filled day, there were some strong words exchanged between those who have finished grade 6 and those who have not. Rules, schedules and expectations were reviewed (again) and everybody went on with their evening.

This morning when he asked me to sign his agenda, I saw what his homework assignment had been.



To complete a Gratitude Journal.



Which he did, sighting that he was thankful for water, shelter; not living in a war zone.



Now, do I feel like a schmuck.



I want to send some thanks out there as well...

Thanks to Sue for the Whoppers on Murder Mystery Night.
Thanks to Sheila, who thinking we were sticking to the "M" gift theme, managed to turn this into a "F"our glasses hostess gift.
Elizabeth, for "F"all towels (very handy) and apple pie candle.
KGB knit me a beautiful bracelet with beads and this isn't the best picture that I ever took; I'm guessing the "F" factor is....fabulous!!
And Nancy, for the Pink Ribbon, magnet memo holder..."F"unctional!



I am thankful to have been able to spend time with so many friends this past weekend!. I managed to get out with the Cast Offs for Dinner on Thursday. My family and I met with our old neighbours/friends for dinner on Friday night, came back here and enjoyed a bonfire in the back yard and had a lot of fun with them.

Sunday was a very special day as I went to Hamilton to share in a 50th Wedding Anniversary Church service with some friends that I've had since grade 9! Actually, it's the parents celebrating the 50th (I'm not there yet!). Anyway, it was a wonderful service, with 8 members of their family singing in the choir! We all went back to the family home and caught up with what everybody's up to these days. And you know what?

Girls Rock!!

The women of the group took over the kitchen, ie. we sat down with our wine in the kitchen and called for the men to look after the cooking. :o)

We shared, we joked, we laughed; well, I may as well own up...there was snorting. It was just that much fun relaxing with all these loving and intelligent women who share so much history; even when our lives have taken so many different paths. I loved every minute of my time with the whole family and look forward to sharing many more celebrations.

Monday was our family's turn and we all met here. The weather cooperated (here, at least) and we got to see pictures from Alaska, where my brother had just been for work, we got to show my dad the house in progress...he likes that kind of thing, we got to show off our dog to everybody that hadn't met her yet and the kids got to play together and on the Wii! (Dad's and Grandpa's are included in the last part there) One of the things that I liked best was seeing my nieces. One is nine, and growing more confident each time I see her and the other will be two in January; she's so little and cute and fun. She has a special place in my heart because she was starting her life when I wasn't sure what direction mine was going and she was a baby to cuddle and babies? Well, they just always give you hope.

I think I'm going to take a lesson from my son's homework (and the Simple Abundance path) and try to end my posts with a Gratitude Journal...can't hurt can it?

1) Children (mine and yours)

2) Extended, warm weather.

3) No dog mess to clean up this morning (yea!)

4) Leftovers for tonight's dinner

5) Loving family and friends...it was great to see you.

Books and their Stories

A couple of years ago, my dear friend Christine moved away (I would post a picture, but I haven't asked her permission) and I missed her very much. We kept in touch by phone (isn't unlimited long distance wonderful?) and sent emails (it was because of her I figured out how to get pictures onto my computer and out into the world!) but that's never quite the same as getting together is it? We planned and tried to get together at Stitches West this past February, but she wasn't able to make it (I, however, got to experience one of the highlights of my life; it could only have improved if Christine and all my knitting friends were able to go with me!)

It was with joy and glee that we were able to coordinate a meeting place, Isle La Motte, VT. On the July 1st weekend we made the 7 hour drive to spend time with my friend and her family. (they only had to drive 5 days)

It was wonderful to see them and to share knitting and yarn stories. One of the things she showed me was the book that her husband and children had given her for her birthday, The Natural Knitter (see above, I couldn't get the picture to move). I spent quite a few hours pouring over her copy and when I got home, I still thought about it whenever I was in a bookstore or yarn shop; even made some special trips to these kind of stores with just that book in mind, but it never really appeared when I was looking for it. Strange. I thought they would be everywhere; it's just such a beautiful book and VERY informative.


So, last Saturday, after I dropped my son off at hockey, I decided to check out a little shop not too far from us called Gemini Fibres to see about a second hand spinning wheel. (I'm beginning to hear the call of fleece!) Luckily, she did not have a spinning wheel, (because I really have no place to put it!) but I'm not about to enter a lovely shop such as hers and not purchase anything...please.



My daughter and I watched the spinners; listened to all their preferences and advice, but I really feel I need to study that whole hobby and it's vocabulary before I commit...mmmmm. I remembered that I had read about using Silk Roving, in No Sheep For You, for Thrum mittens or socks and liked the idea. But Silk Roving is not so easy to come by; and I suddenly thought, hey, if there's gonna be Silk Roving someplace, well then, this is the place! And it was! So I bought some of that...OMG it is incredibly soft!! I also, picked up my 2008 Knitting Calendar, again, who knows how fast they're going to fly off the shelf! I had purused her book shelf --- WOW---but didn't see the book; so I asked and guess what? It was there and now?... it is here.



Now, I have quite a number of knitting (and various other craft related) books, and have spent these past few months trying to justify buying another one and came up with a beaut!



I sold some of my stash. Gasp! What? No!



Yes!



I had made the Dream In Colour Tulip Cardigan using Smooshy double stranded because I couldn't wait to get the Classy...it was a weak moment. It was Knitting In Public Day, I was doing a Yarn Crawl and my last stop was Unwind; I was tired, high on yarn fumes and as I said, weak (to be fair, I'm always weak in a yarn shop). I bought the full skeins of Smooshy and when the sweater was done, I had plenty left over. A dear friend of mine found out that her daughter was expecting her, I think, first grandchild, and wanted to make this sweater for her and offered to buy my leftovers and we came to an agreeable arrangement. She paid me the cost of the yarn without tax; I agreed with the understanding that there was a book that I wanted and if there was any money left over I would give it back to her. It was an even-steven trade! Some of my stash went to a very good home and I got the new book that I wanted...guilt free! L O V E I T!!



I've also been looking forward to another book for quite a few months, and it came just the other day. I don't have any long winded, incredibly thought out rational for buying this book; I just wanted it.

The first book by Crazy Aunt Purl. I want you to notice that the staging of the book for the photo shoot includes cat hair (upper right corner).
There's never any shortage of it here either; so I thought it fitting!

So those are my two newest books and their stories....and as far as stories go...there's plenty more where that came from!

Have a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving everyone; we really do have a tremendous amount to be thankful for. And for today I want to thank Connie at Pick Up Sticks for showing me how to link! :o)

Oh yea, Knitting!

I've talked a lot about my 'knitting friends' and showed you some pictures of some wild and crazy people, but we actually knit too! I thought I'ld show you something that I've finished and one of my WIP (works in progress).

Here is the Noro wrap that I've finished; this is the one that I had to go buy more yarn to complete. I went to Unwind in Newmarket to get the finishing yarn, because that's where the original yarn came from---tell me why a pattern would call for 100g of a specific yarn and have said yarn available only in 40g skeins; can anyone tell me? Anyway, Wendy and I had a good time playing with all kinds of greens to become the ruffle, because you can put any of the greens together, whether they have a blue hue to them or a yellow or dark or light---it's a rule! You know why? Because it happens in nature! All of us colour co-ordinating people got a Free Pass on Greens...put 'em all together, mix them all up, love or hate 'em; they all go together and someday I'm gonna do that! But not today...

The gold just brought the whole thing to life! This wrap was worked using Noro Silk Garden; working double strand on 8mm and when the called for Contrast Colour yarn wasn't available we had to get inventive,(Oh darn it all anyway!) and found a wonderful gold in Cascade Yarns - Cascade 128. This is a chunky/bulky weight yarn and to heavy too be worked double as the pattern called for, but still needed a little something; so we found SWTC - Vickie Howell Collection - Love (Bamboo fibres and silk) it brought a lovely sheen to the Peruvian Highland Wool in the Cascade AND it was 30% off! Woohoo!!

{My knitting friends know about 'the incident' with Bamboo, but I persevered and lived to tell the story!}

So, I'm kind of a swatcher, or at least occaisionally consider the possiblity that what I'm knitting might give me an idea of how the finished project (if ever) might look. But really, if the idea of swatching is to get a perfectly proportionate and fitted item; then I don't swatch correctly. I've had more luck just going with the flow and if it doesn't look good on me? Well someone out there is in for a lovely surprise someday, that's all.

Anyway, how this all relates to the above picture is this: I AM a Blocker!! And thanks to my husband and our construction business I have found the coolest blocking board! It's Insulation...Mitten Levelwall Insulation! It's a styrofoam product that takes the pins well. It's available in a large enough size to handle even our bigger projects, folds up for easier storage and has a grid already marked; including angles!! It's a neat treasure of mine!

Here's the wrap all done along with the photo that inspired it and even though I worked the ruffle 4 times and followed the pattern...I'm not getting the ruffly action, but it sure is pretty. I love Noro yarn; I could work with it all the time. I love how the colour changes and the unlikely combinations that they put together, and I have to say the Silk Garden is indeed my favourite.

Now that this is one more completed project off my list it's time that I turn my attention to some of my neglected projects. And therein lies the problem; which one?

Well, it's quiet here right now; it's kind of dreary and cool... and now that The Yarn Harlot is finished her book she may pass me in completing this project that is soooo her fault for me starting!!

The Mystery Stole III (not so much a mystery now, but still fun!) By last account I was just a bit behind her; if I'm lucky she'll get distracted and leave her stole alone long enough for me to catch up and...(dare I say it) pass her?! It really is a lovely project to work on and there's a lot of significance even in it's materials. The yarn was purchased from Pick Up Sticks (now a retail store in Bradford) and waiting in my stash (always a plus to find a project and have the yarn there waiting for you), the beads were found (much too easily; didn't have to spend much time there at all :o( at That Bead Lady on Davis Dr. in Newmarket, and the Addi Lace needles were from Serenity Knits in Newmarket. I had the most difficulty, though, finding a crochet hook small enough to fit into the beads. I looked in all the most likely places (and even some unlikely ones), but nobody had a 0.75mm crochet hook available on its own. I was getting quite anxious to get started, because all these other knitters were getting ahead of me on this knit along...I guess I AM more competitive than I thought.

I went into Unwind and asked Wendy if she knew where I could get one...she had it in the back, because they offer it with their bead knitting class (duh) and I was good to go!!

The theme of the Stole is Swan Lake and it came (is coming) to be with the support of many wonderful, caring 'crafty' people. Thanks everybody; back to knitting before Stephanie gets back to hers!

Wait, there's more!

Well Julie, here are some more pictures;
are you getting any information as to
who may indeed have murdered
Herr Bevore?

Or were you too busy listening to all the other conversations and sending info back to H.Q.?




Yes, all is forgiven after the end of a war, but not until we know who the murderer is!

So toast us as much as you like
General Kopov, you still are a key suspect as far as I'm concerned!

Trying to throw us off from suspecting you by breaking your glasses? I don't think so.



Now here is someone we should all be careful of!! Nothing good ever came from fraternizing with a traveling sausage salesman!


'E looks zo French, non?

And no he wasn't just glad to see us...
he had his sausage that he kept showing us! Nurse Gently even took its pulse...normal.

(My daughter asked me if I was sure that there were only ladies here?)






Here is Phil pulling out all the stops to try to get someone....anyone...to try 'is sausage! Thank goodness Nurse Gently had the good sense to provide everyone with
Le Prophelactic! With all the celebrating going on and the war over and all, we don't need anymore 'accidents'!

Hmm, what's that suspicious weapon infront of Phil? Could it be...a basting brush?!?

Sock les blue!! (I know the spelling is off, but I have been interrupted at least a dozen times while trying to post this blog! Note to self: don't blog when people are home! Even the dog made me go outside!)


And here is what a wonderful start to my day looks like...
1)Coffee (my own blend of Folgers Simple Smooth and Folgers Decaf ---Regular, thank-you very much, with organic sugar---it's sweeter; so you need less and light 1/2 & 1/2) in MY CUP!!!
2) Magazine: We've got a little tradition started with all of our get togethers that we pick a letter that the theme of the evening starts with; for example our first crack at this was a Wedding/Wine Shower. We all pitched in a $5(ish) gift that started with a 'W', and then at the end of the evening we mix all the gifts up and everybody goes home with a special favour from the party. At our first Murder Mystery we went with the letter 'M' (martini seemed to get a bit of attention at that one) And this time around, because the mystery was based in France; we went with...you guessed it 'F' -- which quickly became the 'effin' gift! I was lucky enough to receive Bon Appetit Magazine the Fall Cooking Special. (A knitting magazine is also a completely acceptable substitute in this situation)
3) It was a beautiful, quiet morning; not too hot; not too cold and I got to sit remembering and enjoying the time that I spend with my friends.

Another Success!!

This is the picture of the table that I made for our 2nd Annual Murder Mystery. We are a group of knitters who meet every Thursday evening for knitting and sometimes we get together just because now we're all friends too; not just knitters meeting at the same place. Last year our Murder Mystery took place aboard a Cruise Ship and we named it the S.S. Cast Offs. This year our Mystery took place at a French Cafe at the end of WW II
We started off the evening; meeting all the characters, while having some drinks on the Cafe's patio. We had lovely french music playing in the background, delictable appetizers and some fine performances from all of our suspects!
We moved to the main dining room at Le Cafe du Cast Offs for our dinner of French Onion Soup les Cast Off and Boeuf Bourguignon with Pariessiene Pomme du Terre; and yes there did seem to be some wine flowing through the course of the evening as well!
I was fortunate enough to sit beside MiMi! She kept looking for something ...perhaps she was the murderer and had stashed the murder weapon in her bussum?!



We all had a really great time. And laughed and laughed, but we never did get around to knitting...

My knitting friends mean the world to me and I love being with them; it really is the high point of my week! I look forward to creating many more memories with them and will have more pictures to share from our Murder Mystery Part Deux on my next post (It only allows 5 at a time).
For now, this is what I awoke to on Friday morning...

It looked better with all my knitting friends didn't it? It's empty without them.

It has been confirmed!

This morning when I was taking Chloe for a walk around the back of our property I thought I saw a special little bird, but 'no' it can't be; it's too soon!



I thought I had seen a Snowbird! (I don't know how to link yet, so you'll have to sort it out yourself) Not the Canadian going south for the winter kind, but the kind that Ann Murray sings about; aka Junko.



Anyway, I'm only about 1 1/2 coffees into my morning; so I'm really not to sure about this sighting. So I double back and try to sneak up on the quietly flittering beasties in the trees, again, no easy task when you're walking a hungry white lab who's only concern is 'when's breakfast and how much are you gonna give me?'



Why, you may ask, would I devote precious morning time to trying to see if there was a certain little bird hanging around? Precious morning time, being the hour in the morning where my entire family seems unable to focus on the task of getting themselves up and going without driving me insane! (I'm trying to promote independence....I make the kids lunch!) Staying outside on a lovely fall morning is much more enjoyable and a confirmed sighting means...



That's it. Summer is over. Won't be long now. All these expressions are commonly shared once we see the Junko every fall; so I had to know.



Well, I didn't confirm anything this morning, except that whenever I speak...very few people pay attention. Once again, children running for the school bus....sigh.



And then today, just a few minutes ago, again, as I was walking the dog (and reducing my stock for one of my culinary creations!) I saw it/them. You see, they don't travel alone; they come in flocks; just before the snow flies...hense Snowbirds...and in October, November, December that's all good, but not now!



And this is the part that makes my brain hurt. It's 32 degrees Celcius - 90ish F (anyone know where the degree symbol is on the keyboard?) and I have the air conditioning on!



Snowbird Fly Away...You're Gonna Melt!!



Stay cool everybody OR knit a hat because that's it; won't be long now!