Polar Bears

Today I was in the West Island section (page 23) of the Montreal Gazette. I was called by the Gazette last Thursday and they tried to come out on Thursday evening to my knit-a-long that I hosted at the shop, but they couldn’t get a photographer. They were able to get one for the next day, during my 4th knit-a-long at the shop for this project. The whole idea was that we were going to get the community together to knit these bears, I would have them on display in my shop for a brief period of time, and then we will donate them to charity. The West Island Women’s Shelter will be taking a large portion of them, and then the rest, we will either try to find another charity to donate them to, or I’ve had requests to sell them, and then give the proceeds to charity. I will see how many are leftover after the shelter takes them. My goal is to have 100 bears. I have given out over 120+ kits with the pattern (which we adapted from another free pattern we found, but I made some changes to it to look more bear like) and gave enough yarn (in either white or off white, some of which one of my suppliers donated (to fill the first 70 kits), the rest (about 50 kits now), I donated from either my personal yarn stash and some from the shop too). From the over 120+ kits that I handed out, I have already received just over 50 bears back, completed. They are all so cute, and each have their own personality! Here are some that I have made:

These two above, are little ones I made, to test out the pattern. The first one, on the left, was made using the original pattern that I found for free online. I wasn’t 100% happy with the face, so I made the one on the right, which was test number 2.

Above, is teenage bear. I used some very thick yarn (Bravo Big by SMC) on 10mm needles to knit this guy up.

And this is Mama bear. I used SMC Bravo Big with the yarn held doubled on 15 mm needles to knit her up. She is awesome. I just love her. You can see below, how much bigger she is from the teenage bear. You can also see in the image at the top of this post, that was in the newspaper today, her size compared to the little baby bears.

I really hope this project brings smiles to children’s faces. That was the plan from the beginning, when I decided to launch this project. I cannot wait to see the entire project finished. I have 2 more bears that need to be completed, I have been playing around with different textures of white yarn to create the bears. I will definitely post a picture of the display once all the bears are up.

Neutral Gaptastic

My friend Melissa asked me to make her a neutral colored Gaptastic as she loves her purple one I made her for her 40th birthday. Same thing like her purple one, I knit to only 10” instead of the 15” the pattern calls for. I used Marble Chunky color MC11 for her scarf, and I just love the way it came out. So does she! I want one for myself now, in this color. Actually, I’d love a Gaptastic in a few different Marble Chunky colors. I love wearing infinity scarves around my neck all fall, winter & spring. The only time I’m not wearing an infinity scarf is summer. I think I will end up making myself a bunch of 10” gaptastics to add to my wardrobe. It’s a fun, easy, quick knit. Great mindless knitting for hockey game knitting or at stitch ‘n bitch. Stay tuned, I’m sure you’ll see this pattern again as finished objects this year.

Melissa’s Gaptastic Cowl

My friend Melissa turned 40 this year and had asked me for a handknit cowl so I decided to knit her a Gaptastic for her as a birthday present. I sent her the James C Brett color card online and she picked out the Marble Chunky color she liked, MC19.

Because Melissa is petite, I decided that knitting the Gaptastic to 15” wide would be way too big on her, so I only knitted to 10” wide before casting off. This used up .69 of the skein. I knit this up on 9mm (circular) needles.

I actually absolutely love this color and the 10” wide as well, that I think I am going to make one for myself, probably in the same color. I kind of want one in the purple (MC19) and the grey/black tonal one as well, MC11, shade card here).

This one was a really quick knit, in under a week. I am sure if I had a full weekend to myself I could have knit this one in one weekend, but with 3 kids, 2 of them in sports, that’s not an option!

Happy 40th Melissa!

Robyn Day Camp

Sean was home for an entire week and a half before kindergarten started on August 29th. At the same time, his best friend was done summer camp and his mom couldn't take off work to stay home with him, so we watched him for the 7 work days between camp and school starting. (Above the boys were doing some water color painting in a book I picked up for them).

As an activity, I took the boys to the grocery store, so we could recycle the cans and bottles of soda. Here in Quebec, you have to pay a .05 cent deposit per bottle or can when you buy soda. When you're done with them, you can bring them back and get your deposit back (incentive to recycle). Since we had a huge pile up of bottles and cans and Jamie wanted them out of the garage, I told the boys, if they helped me recycle them, they could take the money and pick out something from the dollar store. (Sean picked out a pirate costume set, and a ball was picked out for Sean's friend and also for Mackenzie who was at daycare that day, but they didn't want Mack to feel left out). 

On another day, while I was doing work at home, the boys did a make your own face sticker book, and they had fun making silly faces in the book. It kept them busy so I could do some work.

Half the week Mack got to stay home from Daycare and hang out with the boys. We did spend a bit of time at my parents pool. We also had a playdate on another day at the pool with a set of siblings (below), the boy was in Sean's class at daycare and his sister was in Mack's class (she actually just switched daycares for pre-K).

One of the days, I got a letter from Jamie for Sean and a letter from my friend to bring the boys into the USA for the day. Along with my mother, we went to Plattsburgh, New York. I had a list of things I wanted to look for while in the USA. We don't have Target yet (not until 2013 I don't think, but it's coming!) and I like some of the products at Walmart USA over our Walmart here. I was on the hunt for shoes for Sean for Kindergarten, (I got him 2 pairs for the price of 1 pair at home!) and also on my list was 3 matching polo shirts for the boys for an event we have in October. The only place I could find 3 matching polos (in sizes 2t for Quentin, size 5 for Mackenzie and size 6 for Sean) was at Tommy Hilfiger. And with Tommy Hilfiger comes a hefty price. I picked them up anyhow, only because I had 30 days to return them. (At 75$ (with tax) for the 3 shirts, they went back since I found some nice ones by Faded Glory (for $4.97 each!) at Walmart in Plattsburgh). The image above was taken by this mechanical ball thing in the mall in Plattsburgh, which I used to LOVE watching when I was a little girl and our family would take day trips to Plattsburgh. I do have to say that going to the USA isn't what it used to be.... but sometimes you can still find a great deal. We just got Victoria Secret, Target is coming to Quebec in the next year or so, and our first Michaels is opening up September 15th! Who needs to cross the border anymore? I do have friends that go often to grocery shop in the USA, but for me, with the price of gas, it's not worth it).

Lastly, during the week that we had a visitor hanging out with us, I took the boys to review a new art studio that is opening up not too far from our house. We got to check out a mini-workshop in exchange for a review. I am working on that blog post, so stay tuned for that later on this week. It was an awesome experience and I cannot wait to talk about it!

It was a busy and tiring week, but we had a lot of fun. I look forward to running Robyn Day Camp 2013 next summer in between regular summer camp and school starting.

Beautiful Angel 2010-2012

Today was an extremely hard day. I watched a friend say goodbye to her two and a half year old angel. Kaitlin passed away in her sleep on August 9th. I can't even imagine what it must be like for any parent to say goodbye to a young child. I didn't bring enough Kleenex to the services today, and I am glad that I had a mutual friend there to lean on for support for strength to get through it. I hope my friend finds strength in knowing her little girl is at peace.

I will forever see little Kaitlin whenever I see a butterfly, knowing she is watching over her wonderful family. There is a beautiful tribute online that someone made, and I teared up all over again watching it.

American Visitors

In celebration of July the 4th (Happy July 4th to my American Readers), I decided today would be a great day to talk about our American visitors that we had last week. A friend of mine since High School (though she’s always lived in the USA, and I’ve always lived in Canada) came up with her husband and daughter to help us celebrate Mack’s 4th birthday and hang out with us for a week. We met through a Youth Group and have kept in touch ever since. We’ve visited them twice in the Philly area (once for their wedding in 05 and in 2010 we took the boys to stay with them to check out Sesame Place), and met up with them once in Boston (March 2006). They’ve been up to Canada twice before (once for our wedding in 05 and again for a longer visit when I was pregnant with Sean in October 06). Above is 2 pictures from Mackenzie’s birthday party. We rented a HUGE inflatable. IT was so much fun!

We had a fun filled week with them here. We went to a splash park, swimming at my parent’s pool, I painted their daughter’s nails (above) since I don’t have a daughter, this was a LOT of fun for me. I took them for Poutine, to the Children’s Museum, we ate out a lot, the ladies went out to celebrate my birthday last week with some girlfriends for dinner & drinks (no kids!), and we got to check out the Exotarium, which we’ve never been to before and see some pretty interesting things (see pictures below). 

Hope our visitors had a great time in Montreal!

Instagram Kinda Weekend

On Friday, I visited my bestie, who is on bed rest with her 2nd pregnancy, and did some knitting. I actually cast off the hat I’m working on, details to come this week. After visiting her, I headed to the Atwater Library, for a workshop being held by Catherine McKenzie and Shawn Klomparens on Dialogue Writing. I got to meet Mitali, a knitter/mom/blogger that I’ve been following for a while. It was heaven. My 2 fave authors in the same room. I have read both of Catherine’s and Shawn’s books and loved them all. Catherine’s 3rd book is coming out in May, and Shawn is working on his 3rd novel, which I can’t wait to read as well. I walked away from this workshop thinking about all the millions of ideas I have brewing in my head (for years, actually), and how to go about putting them on paper. Or rather, into Microsoft Word.

Saturday I attended a birthday party with my eldest 2 kids, it was their friend’s birthday and we went Glow in the Dark Mini Putting at Putting Edge. I had been to a putting edge in Toronto, years ago, and we finally got one here, not too long ago. (Maybe in the last year or so?) The boys had a fantastic time, and keep asking to go back.

I took a self portrait of myself yesterday, and I can officially say that I have lost 20 lbs. TWENTY POUNDS! That's the size of a one year old (for the most part). I’ve lost an entire baby! Off my body. LOL. I feel great. I still have a few more pounds to go, but I am so close to goal. And I have been pulling out my much loved and missed wardrobe. Yes, it feels great. I leave you with a few photos of my adorable 3 munchkins. The littlest one, is my biggest destroyer. Who would have thought? Stay tuned for some knitting updates this week, as well as hopefully a big movie/book/tv review post that I’ve been working on for quite some time. I think I should be able to finish it and get it posted this week.

A Rushed Weekend

This past weekend Jamie and I were supposed to have a relaxing weekend away in Boston, without the kids (!!!) in honor of my friends wedding. However our weekend, didn't go as planned (though we did manage to get away). We were supposed to leave at noon on Friday, drive down, have dinner, and then meet up with the soon-to-be Bride for drinks at the hotel bar. Friday morning, Jamie got a call that one of our two stores that we own got robbed the night before and he had to take care of that (with police & insurance) and getting our store back up & running before we even thought about taking off for the weekend. The burglars took all our merchandise - though were nice and didn't kick over counters or ruin anything else (except for the safe). They had cut the alarm wire, and entered into the lot next to ours, (which was empty being renovated for the soon-to-be new tenants) and got into our store through the wall! It must have been professionals, because they knew what they were doing. It's absolutely sad that we live in a world with people like this.

Jamie finally got home from work, it was well after 9pm. We decided what the heck, let's go to Boston now instead of going to bed, waking up early, sitting in a car for 6+ hours to not feel relaxed at the wedding that night. We finally got on the road it was LATE! My parents already had the kids. My mom had Quentin since 11 am Friday morning. We were supposed to leave around noon, had our day gone as planned. My mom was to put Quentin down for an early nap after feeding him lunch, and then pick up the older 2 boys and take all 3 to their mid-afternoon swimming lesson (I have all 3 at the same time - miraculously!) My mom still went on her day as planned, and as the afternoon unfolded, we just didn't know what was going on, so I told my mom to keep the kids just in case we decided to leave tonight. (And my hair was already done for the wedding (blow dried straight)... no way I was going to go swimming in the afternoon!)

At one point on Friday, I seriously walked around my house and said "Now what?" The dishes were done, the laundry was done, folded & put away... there was nothing to do. I didn't know what to do with myself! I did some photo editing from pictures from the last few weeks (I had fallen behind), and watched some TV and even did a bit of knitting.

We had a very smooth ride. We had my dad's Lexus (not sure the model) - which is a really nice car. It parks itself! You can even set the cruise control to slow down 1, 2 or 3 car lengths when there is a car in front, it's sick. When border control asked who the car belonged to and Jamie said it was his father-in-laws car, he asked "he just let you take his car?" Jamie then said "we traded 3 kids and a mini van for this car" and the guy laughed and said "what a good trade, welcome to America." He was in a good mood for pretty much midnight on a Friday night/Saturday morning.

We got into Boston after 4 am. Jamie drove the entire way. I kept passing out in the passengers seat (which was mighty comfortable if you ask me). I kept asking him if he wanted me to take over and drive, though I'm not sure I would have been able to keep awake. We got into the hotel, and both of us caught a second wind. We finally fell asleep and woke up about 4 hours later to have breakfast. Then we came back to the room and took a nap. In the afternoon we ended up at Walmart (I needed pantyhose for the wedding) and I picked up some fat quarters as well. To my surprise, one packet of fat quarters was on serious liquidation. (I only noticed after we left Walmart, and I was looking at my receipt). If I had realized, I might have bought more from that company in different colors. (8 fat quarters for 2$!!!) (Photographs to come).

(The room we stayed in was GORGEOUS). We had a nice King size bed and it was clean & stylish. I definitely would stay at the Quincy Marriott again.

I did not make it to Faneuil Hall. I wanted to go there for lunch on Saturday, but it just didn't work out. I wanted to go see this artist whom we have artwork from in our house - to update a picture that we have of our family, with Quentin in it. Oh well - next time. We have 2 pieces from this artist - one of Jamie & I with our wedding date on it (dressed up in wedding gear) and another one of our family of 4, before Quentin was in the picture. Both are pieces my parents have gotten for us. It's really cute, they're cartoon pictures. I also wanted to go to JoAnn Fabric, Target, Michaels, and Snow Goose Yarns. (All carefully planned out last week). None of that happened either.

Chilling at the hotel waiting for Jamie to get ready. I was cold, hence my sweater over my dress.

Jamie and I at the wedding.

With the Bride & Groom!

Beautiful New England drive home. (We drove across, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Quebec). The drive home was beautiful - it's my favorite time of the year with the leaves falling. I started the drive home & Jamie took over and I got to knit - the first time all weekend. I'm now about 2.5" of 5" into my Linen Stitch Scarf.

We made it back to Montreal (and sat in traffic on the bridge, hence why I was able to get such a great shot of our skyline) just after the boys were fed dinner. Quentin was super excited to see me, Sean was practically waiting by the door with his jacket on to go home (though he had a great time at my parents house this weekend, my brother even took him to hockey practice both days) and Mackenzie.... he didn't want to leave my parents house & threw a fit! He seriously didnt want to go home. He just loves his Bubbie & Papa (my parents).

While we got to get away... the entire weekend felt rushed and not very relaxing. I told Jamie I need to go away with him on a one week all inclusive (if my parents will take all 3 boys for a week??) and actually relax, with no plans, no where to be, nothing to do but relax and read a book, swim, tan, etc... One day... For now, I'll keep dreaming. (We figure maybe next year, once Quentin is walking/easier to manage and 100% sleeping through the night - because he's still not).

Wine

Saturday night while we were out for dinner one of my best friends, (I have 2 of them + Jamie, of course), sent me a text message letting me know there was a surprise outside on our front porch. When I got home, there was a huge gift bag, with a sweetly written card & 2 bottles of wine. Jamie had been on antibiotics since last Monday, so we are saving these bottles of wine for the weekend, he's now finally finished the antibiotics & we can enjoy this lovely gift. Best friends rock.

Back in the Game

I'm back in the game. When Mack has his next boo-boo (hopefully not for a while), I can now whip out an Iron Man bandaid thanks my awesome friend Kerry. I had picked up 3 boxes of these bandaids while we were in the USA last summer (Aug 2010) and Mack has gone through all the Iron Man ones - the only ones he'll wear. The last couple of boo-boos, I have had to tell him we don't have any. But now... I'm back in the game - I'm equipped with a ton more. I've got enough Iron Mans to last me the next 60 boo boos. Even I've resorted into wearing the Captain America, Hulk & Wolverine ones. (I think of Hugh Jackman every time I wear the Wolverine bandaid - Mmm!) Thanks again Kerry - you rock!

Ariadne

It's sad to see my fave LYS close it's doors. It's pretty much the only yarn shop in Montreal that I enjoyed visiting. Always friendly faces to greet you when you enter, great selection of yarns, and always was made felt welcome there. Yesterday, I visited MollyAnn to see what was left in store before she closed her doors.

Quentin on the other hand wasn't interested in the yarn, but in one of my best friends gold bracelets. I took the drive down the yarn shop with her, I'm such an enabler.

And of course, I couldn't walk out empty handed, right?

7 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted (I'm thinking sweater) in Kiwi.

2 skeins of Lamb's Pride Burly Spun in Kiwi & 2 in Black. Now, I have already 4.5 skeins of the black in my stash. These 2 skeins are bought specifically for a chunky cowl in mind, for winter, and the other 4.5 skeins are reserved for the Cozy Bolero.

I also picked up 2 skeins of Project B (which MollyAnn hand dyes herself, if I am not mistaken) in pink and in red. No actual colorway names on the skeins. I also wanted to try out some Turtlepurl Asian Leaf Turtle Toes in Violent Violet. The dyer is from Gatineau, Quebec, and I've never heard of her before, but the skein is in one of my fave shades of purple.

I also scooped up a copy of St-Denis Issue 3 (Spring 2011) and Interweave Knits Weekend 2011.