One done

Christmas 2011 gift list... WHAT? allready!
Yup, I have one gift checked off my knitting list for next Christmas.
Daughter V had told me last year that she would love a pair of thrummed mitts. During one of our visits to see our son we stopped at an alpaca farm in Stratford. I just could not resist a thrummed mitt kit in a wonderful grey yarn. I knew they were exactly what V would like.

As I was knitting these mittens, I kept looking at the roving and the yarn...I was really worried I would run out. So I took my scale out and kept weighing the yarn...just to make sure I would have enough to finish.
Well, it was so close...I did not put any roving in the last few rows on the thumbs and I have only a few meters of yarn leftover. Good thing I did not make the mitts for myself cause I would have run out for sure.

But it all turned out well. I am more than happy with these mittens. They are super soft and very very thick. They will be so warm... I just can't wait to give them to daughter V.

The grey colour is deep and rich.

I blogged here about a pair of thrummed mittens I made from myself.

Look at the difference in thickness between these alpaca mittens and my other thrummed mitts! Twice as thick.

I guess I 'll just have to knit myself another pair!



New beginning and soapmaking

Although this new stage in my life began almost two months ago, I have not yet blogged about it.
At the end of January, I retired from 31 years of a career in education...still loving my job, still passionate about it but ready to let it go and allow my life to take a different direction.
I must admit that eventhough I loved the idea of retirement, it's such a huge life change that it will take some getting used to.
Don't get me wrong, I love it. I have plenty to keep myself very occupied and I have loads of projects and plans for the future. But that's just it, I still am in the mode of filling my days to the max, just like when I was working. I must learn to let go of my agenda and my calendar!! ...well, at least, let it go a little...and not be so worried about it.
When I left, my boss had told me that she would call me to work a few hours here and there...April will be a busy month...but I am looking forward to getting back to my old habits.

So what has been keeping me busy these last few weeks?

Soaps...lots of soap.

Soaps are white with purple chunks. I used a stamp to leave on imprint on the front of the soap.

I purchased perfect little pruple organza bags from That final touch on Etsy and daughter V made little tags for them.

As you have probably guessed, our daughter will be giving out soaps as guest favors at her upcoming wedding.

I've also knitted a little bit...will be back to post about that later.

Great grey owl

We heard him at night, we also saw him, high in the trees but again, always at night...till the other day.

There he was, perched on top of the flag pole behind our house. The great grey owl. he is quite well camouflaged and is a bit hard to see from a distance.

He's been around for about 2 months now. Being the largest North American owl, he's huge. According to the Audubon handbook that we have, he could measure as much as 27''. He has a large face with concentric grey and bown circles, white crescents on the throat and yellow eyes.

Quite the sight!

Etsy update and sale!

I've recently added a few more hand painted yarns to my Etsy shop. And to help with the winter blahs, how about a little sale?
10% off all yarns by entering the code 10OFFNOW during checkout.
Better check it out!


Sale on till the end of the month.

It's what's on the inside that counts

It all started with wonderful Fleece artist kit that I purchased from my LYS last month to make a pair of Thrummed mittens.
The kit has a great handpainted worsted weight yarn and kid roving dyed to coordinate.

Thrummed mitts are actually a Canadian thing. They have been around for a few hundred years in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador. Bits of fleece were added to the inside of knitted items to add warmth.

After several false starts (a.k.a. frogging), I finally settled on a technique to make the thrums and to thrum a stitch by following the instructions from Biscotte and Cie.
Another great tutorial can be found on Hello Yarn but I did not follow that technique to knit the thrums.

I found that it's best to make a few dozens of thrums at a time.

After knitting a 2 ½ inch cuff, I started to insert thrums every fourth stitch and every fourth row. 

Even the thumb is thrummed.(try saying that three times in a row!) Looks really great on the outside, wait till you see what's on the inside!

How crazy is that? 

Over time, the thrums will felt to eah other and to the knitted mitt to form a warm felted layer on the inside of the mitten. But to help things along, I intend to wet the mitt and start the felting process by gently rubbing with a bit of soap and hot water, just to make sure that the thrums are lined up properly and don't felt in lumps...I would hate lumps on the inside of any mitts.

I intend to make more of these. Too much fun.

Friends

For the past 22 years, three girlfriends and I have been meeting twice a year for girl's weekends. All of us lived in the same city back then but one by one, they moved to other parts of Ontario and I am the only one left here. But even the distance that seperated us could not keep us apart.
Over the years, we have shared beautiful moments together and supported each other through some very difficult times as well.
We usually meet at a Bed & Breakfast, a cottage, or each other's houses (kicking the hubby out, of course!). For our 25th year anniversary, we are planning a major trip involving a flight and passport...destination yet to be determined! All four of us should be retired by then...it will be a great time!

My January knitting was all about them. I made three pairs of fingerless mittens from the Fetching pattern, available on Knitty.com

The red mitts are knitted without any modifications. They fit a very small hand. I knew I would have to modify the pattern to lengthen it a bit for the purplish blue mitt for a medium hand. The black mitt are the longest, made for a hand with long fingers like mine. We all met last weekend and I was happy to see that they all fit.

I love fingerless mitts. You can wear them when the weather gets warmer, when you are shopping and they look nice over a pair of thin gloves as well when extra warmth is needed.

Cables are at the wrist and also near the fingers.
A 4 X 1 rib all over the hand part makes this mitt really snug fitting.

Tomorrow, I take a course to make thrummed mitts...more on that next week.
Enjoy your weekend

Unconventional

Doing things differently is always fun. You get to see how far you can push the limits to get the results you are looking for.

I recently purchased a hand dyed sock blank to knit a pair of socks. If you have not seen those yet, they are basically a knitted rectangle that you take apart to knit a pair of socks (or whatever else you can knit with sock yarn). They are usually knitted with with two strands of yarn so that both of your socks will be identical when you knit them. What makes them fun is that you are not quite sure what your socks will look like when they are done. Clic here to see an example sold on Etsy.

I decide to make a blank of my own by using the same technique but with the sleeve of a wool sweater I took apart to recycle the yarn.
In th next picture you see one of the sleeves on my dogs grooming table. I already started to apply fushia dye to the cuff of the sleeve.

I continued to add dyes of different colours all the way to the top. Now my problem was that the 'sleeve' was really saturated with dye because I wanted the colours to be vibrant. I knew I could not move it or the colours would mix and I would end up with a muddled mess. How to add heat to fix the dyes? I knew that the microwave was not the answer, nor was the steaming pot of hot water.
I thought I might have another option, something that I have not seen elsewhere though...so I covered the blank with plastic wrap to test it out.

Then I went in the garage to get a few work lamps and set them up over the soaked blank to see if they would produce enough heat to set the dyes.

It actually worked. It took a few hours, as I moved the lamps around to make sure every section was heated through. After a while, I started to press the blank with a paper towel to see if the water left was clear and it was!!

Here is the first dryed blank.

And here is a second one I made the same way.

Of course, these blanks are not knitted with two strands of yarn so I intend to knit a scarf, cowl or hat with them. Yarn is more like a DK or a light worsted yarn. Now to find the perfect pattern!

Bliss

Bliss is defined as perfect happiness, utter joy or contentment.

Winter makes me feel that way.

Even though there's very little snow on the ground, due to the rain and mild weather of the past week, I could not wait anymore. So tonight, when I got home for work, I went snowshoeing.

The sun was allready behind the trees but the trails were calling me!

I always like to bring a dog with me and Anouk is the perfect companion. She loves to explore the trails and to have the chance to run as much as she wants. She won't get distracted to the point of chasing a deer should we meet one.

She probably runs two or three times the distance I walk because she's going back and forth all the time. (Blurry picture because I did not have the right setting on my camera for an 'action shot'). But she was coming full throttle at me with a smile on her face...I kid you not!

She pays attention to every noise around us.

Mother-daughter mittens (Rav project page) are now blocked. I forgot that I also have the embroidery to add to the flower, so I might get to that later this week but in the meantime here is a night picture of what they look like.

I hope you also felt a bit of bliss in your day today!

Look twice

What do you see? Well, beside the yummy pasta dish on tv!

I was cleaning the living room and jumped out of my skin when I saw two eyes looking at me.

Mia, will find little spots all over the house to call her own . Sometimes she's on top of a dresser, or behind a curtain, inside a cupboard or in a closet.

My Mother-daughter mittens (Kristin Nicholas pattern) are almost done. I have lots of yarn ends to weave in! As soon as I block them, I will show you.

I still feel the tightness but my back is better.

A few more millimeters of snow fell today! I hope to get back on my snowshoes by the weekend.

 

2011

The beginning of this new year has been not so good. I hurt my back again on New Year's Eve and had to spend lots of time in bed...not good. The meds work but they make me very sleepy. I'm not sure if I will be able to make it to work tomorrow, or even this week.

The beginning of a New Year often lead us to think of where we would like to be in a year from now and we usually come up with a few resolutions to get there. This year, I'm keeping it very simple.
HEALTHIER
That's all. Just do what needs to be done to be healthier. For me this means two things.
1. Be more active: I need to get back to my yoga. I love doing it but I haven't made it a priority this past year and I'm sure that I'm paying the price for it today. I need to put aside 15 to 60 minutes a day to do yoga. Simple, now just to get off my butt and do it!
With my new snowshoes, I know I will enjoy the outdoors more. As I'm looking out my window, I am very excited to see that it's snowing. With all the rain we've had in the past few days, we need snow!!
2. Learn more about eating healthier. My body is becoming more and more sensitive to certain foods. This past year, I've had to accept that I cannot tolerate any milk products at all, not even small amounts. Now that all kinds of research shows that soya milk is not such a great food, I need to explore other products. I've tried almond milk and goat's milk but it's difficult to find cheeses (I'm a huge lover of cheese) or yogurts that I can eat or that I like to eat.

2011 looks like it will be a very exciting year.
I'm retiring at the end of January (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Our daughter is getting married in April.
We will have alpacas on our land as soon as the fencing is up (late spring??)

All great reasons to be in better shape and HEALTHIER!

What are your goals for 2011??