january three

Today I went to the afternoon Habs game with my mom. We had a really good time, even though the Habs lost. We lost to the Buffalo Sabres 1-0. Today was my first time not knitting at a Habs game, but I did work on a square for Babette - in crochet! I made one square while at the game and another at home this evening. I will post progress pictures of Babette tomorrow - it's already far too dark to take pictures of anything.

Jamie is super sick. If he had fever and other symptoms he said it would have been H1N1. But it's not. He has no fever but just feels like crap. He says today passed by like a complete blur. He stationed himself in our den on the garage floor level of the house, as he said it was the most central place to station himself. He said he could hear the kids in the playroom if they were there and he could hear them in the basement if they were there playing. Mack napped for most of the time I was at the game and Sean actually took a nap with Jamie he said. So I didn't feel too bad leaving him sick alone with the kids. Heck, I've done it before, being very sick and home with 2 kids that are sick as well. The kids were fine, they have free reign of the house, I wasn't worried about anything.

Ok, so let's talk about some of my knitting goals. I think this yarn diet is going to kill me. I know some project is going to pop up and I'll be like "Ugh, I don't have yarn for this..."... Yeah. But I am going to stick to it. I have plenty in my stash, and I could knit until I'm 105 years old with the amount of yarn I have in my stash, probably. (Ok, I might be exaggerating, but it's quite close!) Though, I am accepting yarn as gifts, (birthday, mother's day, anniversary... you know... from other people!) I think I'll be okay. I must stay strong. I must have the power. I did make 2 last 2009 purchases last week. I had some money in my paypal and was like... I need a bit of this and a bit of that, so I placed an order with Knitpicks and at a Canadian online yarn shop and should be getting those goodies in the mail soon. I am not in any clubs this year (gave up those after 2008 ended actually, and didn't miss those in 2009).

Knitting Goals of 2010....

I want to absolutely knit myself at least one sweater... if not more. I definitely have sweater worthy yarn and sweater worthy quantity of yarn in my stash. First up, I'd like to knit myself a February Lady Sweater as I've been wanting to make myself one forever.That's on the top of my list. Also, if I get the chance to in 2010, as I'll be (mainly) knitting for myself this year (with a few exceptions of promised gifts). I'm also looking at the Featherweight Cardigan the Cozy Bolero, maybe Monday Morning Cardigan or even her Amelia. I also like Bernhardt or Tamzin or Cardigan Mango or The Concetta Cardigan or Trilo or even Tea Leaves Cardigan. I'm also loving this new pattern that I just queued, called the Myrtle Cardigan. You see, the options are endless. However, I do know that I plan to make myself at least one, and it will be the February Lady Sweater. That's for sure.

The next question is which yarn to use. I have sweater quantity yarn on it's way to me in the mail, I'm sure it'll get here by tomorrow. So we'll talk about that tomorrow.

I also want to accomplish as much as I can from my WIPs so that I don't enter 2011 with too many UFOs.


Right now I have a bunch of unfinished projects. Let's start with the active ones. (Click on the image above to see it in larger). I have from left to right: Mara, Zachary's Blanket, Babette, Drop Stitch Scarf, Leftover Sock Yarn Blanket & Mack's Cabled Pullover.

Mara is almost done. I should be able to get it finished this week. Zachary's Blanket deadline is near January 8th, so I will get that finished up by next weekend at some point. Babette will be ongoing, but the squares don't take me too long to make it'll be the finishing afterwards that will take forever. The same thing goes for the Leftover Sock Yarn Blanket, that is an on going project and I'm okay if that ends up being my ONLY 2011 project that I'll be starting the year with. Let's see if I can make that happen. The Cabled Pullover may get frogged. It's in 18 month size (which Mack is now officially wearing) and I can't bring myself to finish it. Maybe it's the color. Maybe it's the pattern. I don't know. Maybe I'll finish it one day and give it to another kid before they are 18 months. We'll see. I'll make that decision when I get to it. But right now... I'm not loving it. It probably is the color, even though I love burnt orange.

Then I have some projects in Hibernation ("ZZZ"). My Jaywalkers, 50% done. My married sock, 50% done. Woven Trellis Scarf, which is about 65% complete. And lastly, Sophia, which didn't get too far into the project... but still remains started and in the project bag with all the yarn. It's very possible that this yarn will end up as another project. We'll see. I'll decide when I get there. I have 14 balls of the yarn in that project, so I am sure I could make any other sweater with that yarn if Sophie never gets any further.

Ah, so there you have it. I hope I accomplish all that I set forth this year. I have lots of things in mind to do - let's hope I can accomplish it!

Off to go watch and all new episode of Desperate Housewives. I waited 20 minutes in so that I could skip commercials. God Bless my PVR!

october seventeen :: 16 Months Old

*** Warning: This is a very picture heavy post. ***

Mack is 16 months old today. He's at home, I'm in NY. I will take our self portrait tomorrow when I return home. Oh, do I miss my boys.

We set up the alarm for 7 am and got ready. We had complimentary breakfast at the hotel and then headed to the festival. We were on the road by 8:10, stopped for gas and then got to the fairgrounds by 8:50 am.

The parking lot was already filling up. Lots of people come from near & far to Rhinebeck.

There was no traffic into the fairgrounds from our end, but there was traffic from the other direction, which was everyone coming from Kingston, NY.

My very first purchase of the day, which was from The March Hare.
I bought 2 skeins, Grape Jelly & Ruby Slippers.

It was REALLY cold out there today. Thankfully I brought my hat.

Amy & I at the festival.

There was a lot of knitwear on display. Love the thigh high stockings.

And super cute aprons. Love this one.

Even the real Aflac duck was at Rhinebeck. You know, the one from the commercial.

And there were some smiley animals.

There were interesting signs for stuff for sale.

And really cute knitted gnomes.

I managed to score myself 2 pairs of free earrings for photographing this vendor's booth. She randomly asked me (since I had my Nikon D60 around my neck) to photograph her booth for her, since she needed some pictures for future craft show applications. She said I could have the earrings I picked out for free. What she didn't know is that she picked someone who has a degree in photography, and I gladly shot some images for her. Her earrings just rock!

We saw some really cute knitted sweaters. I just love them.

And some lovely creatively dyed yarn.

I picked up some yarn from Ginger Hill Farms. I love the basket that they had the yarn in.

Madeleine, Amy & I at Rhinebeck.

I got to see Jess again at Rhinebeck. Met her last year at Rhinebeck!

And got to see Casey again!

Got to meet Mary-Heather!

I also got to meet Sarah, the newest Ravelry employee.

Even Bob was there today!

I got to see Laura again.
I just love her designs.

I also got to see Dianne again, met her last year at Rhinebeck. Just love her yarn.

I got to see Karen again, also met her last year at Rhinebeck.

And we managed to run into Hattie! Finally after a LONG time of keeping in touch with her. Hattie is an awesome person. I am so happy that we ironically ran into each other!

And the Knitmore Girls were handing out free gifts, and we ran into them as well. That was super cool. I got a nice gift with some yarn.

I had a great time at Rhinebeck. It was super cold, so I didn't get to chill there and knit, but I am glad that I brought my hat, gloves, and Ishbel. I passed by Anne Hanson three times and never got the courage to go over to say hello & snap a picture with her. I just got shy all of a sudden. Oh well, maybe next time. Silly, I know.

I got some lovely yarn... which I will have to show you tomorrow. It's all yummy! Promise.

After we left we killed some time at the Village Diner.

While there I got warm with some soup and a whole wheat grilled cheese sandwhich. I worked on my nephew's tube socks. Amy met her "stomach match", someone with very similar stomach eating problems as she has. They exchanged information, it was cute.

We had a nice time just hanging out at the diner. It was nice and warm inside.

Finally it was time to head to the Ravelry Party at Elks Lodge.
It was hosted by the Ravelry Staff, Casey, Jess, Mary-Heather & Sarah.

I got to meet the lovely Ysolda, and show her my Ishbel, which I was wearing.
I even asked her how to pronounce Ishbel, which it's just "Ish-bel" as you'd say it.
No scottish accent to go with the name of the pattern, like some people think.
Someone actually once corrected me and told me it was "I-zo-bel".... wrong!

Turns out it was Ysolda all along in the knitted Bob!
She made it this past week, took her 5 days.
That's quite impressive!

I worked some more on my nephew's tube socks.

And some more on them. Hoping to get them done soon.

We met some awesome people at the Ravelry party. Like Lisa & Lisa. And Esther, Sara & another Lisa! Knitters just rock. I also saw Veronik at the party & chatted with her for a few minutes. She was with Pam Allen at the time, and I was too shy to even introduce myself, even though Veronik did for me. LOL. What's gotten into me!??

After the Ravelry party when we couldn't take the cold anymore, we headed over to the Eveready Diner, which I loved. I treated myself to an onion soup (which helped warm me up) and a Philly Cheese Steak wrap which was ever so yummy, and definitely recommendable.

Now we're back at the hotel, and I think we've decided to not go back to the festival tomorrow, we're all shopped out, and we can only bring back 400$ CAD without paying duty, not the 750$ CAD I thought we were allowed (750$ CAD is for 7 days out of the country). Silly me. Glad I looked it up.

july eighteen

Sean was up at 5:30 am this morning and refused to go back to sleep in his own bed. He insisted that he had to come into my bed. He's been finding his way into our bed a lot lately. Not sure what that is all about.

When Mack finally got up this morning, he had his bottle of milk in our bed, and upon finishing his bottle, he spat a bit of it up, all over Jamie's pillow and himself. The poor kid isn't doing so well yet on the milk. I do not remember Sean getting on milk being so hard. Hopefully it just needs some adjusting and he'll be okay.

This afternoon I had some of the West Island Knits girls over at my house for the Stash party. The Traveling Stash bag ended up in Montreal, and we got to dig through it (and add to it). The bag will be leaving at some point at the end of this upcoming week as I've found an Ottawa knitter on Ravelry who is going to Moncton, NB and is taking it there for me.

We dug through it, picked what we wanted, donated stuff to it from our own stash, and then put it all away and had cake and cookies and tea. We chatted, some of us knitted, and it was fun.

Even Sean wanted to learn how to knit.

With a really girly color of fun fur. Ew!!

Mack napped during almost all of the stash party, but got up just before everyone left. After everyone left today, Sean refused to nap again. We're having a huge problem with him not napping on the weekends at home. He really needs his naps, but we're having no luck. And he isn't even tired at his normal bedtime after not napping during the day. Just cranky.

Just like lunch, we had leftovers again for dinner tonight. Nothing wrong with that. I could have whole wheat pasta at every meal if I could. We're almost done my mother-in-law's tofu sauce, so soon it won't be leftovers again for another meal..

This evening, with some red wine in hand, I sat down and worked on the pals for the Single Sock Swap Round 2 I'm hosting on Ravelry. We're a tiny little group, 13 of us, but still, it's going to be fun! Tomorrow I will be doing the pals for my Fave Things Swap on Raverly. We just closed sign ups for Round 4. There will be another round in the fall, if you're interested in playing. Jamie is at hockey tonight, so once I'm off the computer, I'll be getting some knitting done.

Some recent stash enhancement:

5 skeins of Jojoland Melody Superwash for the Swirl Shawl in color M18.

And while I was ordering this yarn... some others ended up in my shopping cart:

Sereknity Sock Options Perfect Sock in Crush

Sereknity Sock Options Perfect Sock in Belladonna

Sereknity Sock Options Perfect Sock in After Dinner Mint

Sereknity Sock Options Perfect Sock in Green Monster

Trekking Hand Art in Karibik

Trekking Hand Art in Brazil

Yum!

It's only because there was a 20% off coupon if you spent more than a certain amount... and they offer free shipping worldwide, which is fantastic! This was all purchased from Yarn & Fiber. Not my first time purchasing from them, and definitely not my last!

Happy Birthday Sherrie!

july thirteen

After dropping off Sean at daycare today, I headed to the nutritionist office. I've been now the same weight (which is good!) since last Thursday. I'm down 36.2 lbs (from my 35 lbs goal). I'd like to lose still the few more so that I can have that extra room to have a little cheat here or there if I wanted, once in a while and not feel guilty about it.

I ran some errands this morning, picking up some items I needed. I went to the post office to mail some RAKs for Ravelry (for the Random Acts of Kindness group), I had made stitch markers over the weekend for about 8 people on Ravelry who had handmade stitch markers on their wishlist.

And since I'm an obsessive list maker, I picked up some new notebooks. I love notebooks. They're a guilty pleasure. I journal, jot notes, make lists, write down directions, phone numbers in them. There are times were I have a bunch of notebooks in my purse at one time. I love them. And fresh clean ones are always exciting.

I also picked up a vegetable thing for the barbecue. I'd seen the hostess of the BBQ yesterday using one, and thought it was a great idea for grilling vegetables, and them not falling through the grill of the bbq! I want to look at one more place before settling on keeping this one (I was told there is a place that has one for half the price that I paid for this one above - and since I'm the queen of deals, I'd like to check it out before using this one, since I have 30 days with the one above to return it if we don't use it).

Mack went down for a nap just after 11 am this morning, and napped until just after 3pm. We were possibly going to go to playgroup today, but that didn't happen due to Mack's nap. It's too bad because it was at Jenn's house today. I honestly don't think we'll be going back to playgroup anymore, as it's right smack in the middle of Mack's nap time. Too bad. Now that Mack's doing the toddler nap, it's just not going to work. I think our playgroup days are over. We'll just have to make playdates with friends. So I stayed in and did work while Mack napped. I got a lot of stuff done.

Today I wore an old Barenaked Ladies tshirt that I haven't worn in years. It was not fitting for the longest time, when I had all the baby weight still on me, but now it's too big! Size Medium and too big! I love it! Though it's a cozy "baseball" style tshirt and I love it. I wonder what else is in the back of my closet that will fit again/be too big! I love it. I'm sure that I got that Barenaked Ladies tshirt at a concert that I went to... which was pre-Jamie... so over 7 years ago.