Knitter’s Frolic Brioche Cowl Class

Last spring I headed to Toronto with a friend of mine for Knitter’s Frolic. We headed to our friend Jen’s house. Besides Knitter’s Frolic, I had lunch with one of my suppliers, took a ballet booty class at my friend’s gym, did a lot of knitting, and had a lot of fun. One of the 2 classes I took in Toronto was a class on the Brioche stitch. The class was given by Kate Atherley, a local to Toronto designer. It was very cool meeting her and I learned a lot in the class. In her class we learned how to do the stitch by using a Cowl pattern. I really enjoyed learning this stitch. This cowl took me no time at all to make. Let’s hope I remember how to do the brioche stitch the next time I want to make something using Brioche! 

The other class I took was with Sivia Harding (how cool, too!) and it was on knitting with beads. Unfortunately I don’t have a finished project from that class (yet) to show you. I should get on that!

Twist Fibre Festival

 

On Saturday August 23rd, I went on a road trip with my friend Sara to Saint-André-Avellin, Quebec, to check out Twist Fibre Festival. It was a nice hour and a half drive from our houses, on a very beautiful scenic route. (Above right photo is some items our friend Eugenia was selling in her booth).

  

Ashford had a booth at the festival (left hand photo) and as of this past week, the shop is officially an Ashford dealer. I am VERY excited about this. I am taking a weaving class soon as I’ve wanted to learn how to weave for a very long time. Weaving will definitely help me use up my yarn stash! There was also a yarn bombed spinning wheel at the show in one of the booths.

 

One of the coolest things was the Purling J’s Roving Yarn Co truck. They hail from Kingston, Ontario, and it’s the coolest thing ever. A mobile yarn store. How cool!??!!

 

(Left, me inside the truck)
(Right, me knitting at Eugenia’s booth, just hanging out).

After the festival, I went out for dinner in Saint-André-Avellin with Sara, Eugenia & Manon. Eugenia & Manon happen to be on my exec for the knitting guild this year (I was elected President this past May for this upcoming year). We had drinks, some of us knitted, we talked about our purchases from the day, and it was very nice & relaxing. The restaurant we went to, Au Vieux Chaudron was very tasty. I even had lunch, at the festival, with a lot of Knitting Guild Members. It was really nice to meet up with them at the festival.

Quebec City Aquarium

This past weekend we visited my Sister-in-Law, her fiancé and my nephew. They live about 45 minutes south-east of Quebec City. On Saturday we were looking for something to do and ended up at the Quebec City Aquarium. My nephew apparently has been there about 15 times and absolutely loves it there. We bought a family pass (as Quentin got in free) and it cost about 58$ with taxes. That’s not bad at all.

My fave thing at the aquarium was this cutie. I’m not even sure what it was but he was pressed up against the glass window of the tank and had the cutest little face!

Quentin was super excited to see “finding nemo” as he called them (above left) and I love the jellyfish – don’t they look like buttons?!

The shade of this green is one of my fave shades of green (above left). Whatever that was too, it was stunning to look at. The kids called this (above right) a sea mushroom. I thought it was cool to look at as well.

The polar bear we saw was doing laps in his pool and the seals were lounging by their pool.

There was awesome sand castles.

And awesome se creatures as well. How neat are these?

I tried to get a picture of all 3 boys. Mackenzie had no interest in smiling. It’s so difficult these days to get a picture of all 3 of them. I hope it’s just a phase and hopefully we’ll get to a point where I can take a nice picture of all 3 of them smiling at the same time. Maybe one day soon….

Wordless Weekend Wrap Up

his is what my weekend looked like – it was a holiday weekend here in Canada. Today is Victoria Day – celebration of the Queen’s birthday. Monday morning link love will resume next Monday at it’s usual time – 9 am. I’ve got some knitting updates & finished objects to show you this week. Stay tuned for some posts!

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).