Stay Gold!

Stay Gold Team Canada!

The Small Vermonter

This was supposed to be an adult hat, the Vermonter. I followed the instructions exactly with a super-bulky yarn and 8mm needles, however it fits 3 year old Quentin snuggly. Hmm... I wonder what went wrong? The hat without the pompom weighs 48g and the pompom is 22g for a total of 70g. So it turned out to be a small vermonter. Quentin wears it well! It was a really quick knit I did in 1 evening. I’ll try to find some other yarn, and maybe go up to 10mm needles to try to make this an adult version, as it’s a super cute hat.

Flight Tracker

My in-laws just returned from their trip, and we were able to track their flight with this very cool app. It was very neat to be able to track their flight and see where they were at any given point, the kids enjoyed that. It also allowed us to see if they were arriving late or early or on time, to be able to leave at the right time to go to the airport. And I didn’t even need to use the app on my iPhone, I was tracking it right on my computer, so someone who doesn't have an iPhone can track a flight as well with the link. Very cool! (Click on the image to open it up to see it in better detail).

Diagonal Blanket

I started a beautiful blanket for a little girl (hubby’s co-workers baby) and thought I had enough yarn. I was weighing the yarn as I was going, as it started off in the corner and you work your way to the size you want, then you start decreasing once you have reached the half way point. Well… something didn’t calculate right, and I ended up running out of yarn with a 7 rows to finish. I was so upset! And of course, the yarn I was using was stash yarn (not from my yarn shop) that I picked up numerous years ago, at Walmart. It’s Red-Heart Eco-Ways, a recycled blend. It actually knits up nicely. Anyhow, I made a few calls, checked (just in case) at Walmart (and Fabricville) to see as they both carry Red-Heart, but neither of them had Eco-Ways. I called my supplier who carried Coast & Clark, the company who makes Red-Heart, and my contact said that the yarn has been discontinued for at least 2 years and that she even looked to see in their random bin at work, but they didn’t have any of that to send me. Hmmm… next step, was Ravelry. I sent a message to a handful of people who had the yarn in the same colorway in their stash. I heard back from several people and managed to get some extra yarn to finish off the blanket, and make another one.

The pattern was How To Do Corner Start Diagonal Crochet by Sandi Marshall and I used a 5.5 mm (I) crochet hook. The blanket with both colors is about 260g of yarn. I am pleased with the final results, and it would have been finished earlier had I not run out of yarn. The recipient loves the blanket as well.

National Sweater Day

Don’t forget to wear your sweater today!

Cabin Fever

Deb Gemmell, author of Cabin Fever books (Need A Hat? Need a Sock? Need an Accessory? and many more) came into the shop today for a surprise visit. She’s visiting Montreal for the week. I got her to sign my copy of Need a Sock? Thanks Deb!