Birthdays, weaving, new house

My grandaughter has just celebrated her first birthday (march 10)! Here she is enjoying her first piece of cake, she ended up wearing most of it lol!

We had a nice family supper for her and for my husband who celebrated his 61st birthday! on March 7. Boy time does fly!

We have been living in the city now for over 2 months and we are loving it! We were so ready for this move. I can clean the house in over half the time it took at the old place. We are almost done with the inside of the house and then Andy will start working on the outside so by the time summer time gets here we should be able to sit back and relax!

My craft room is all ready and most of my stuff is in place, including my new loom, I still have to clean it up and finish putting it together, I'm getting there nice and slow, I've started reading books and articles on how to weave.

It sounds like something I will really enjoy, can't wait to start! Here's a picture of the project that's on the loom from the lady who owned it before.

Been a long time, again!

So, looks like I'm taking long breaks between posts! I've been super busy what with the new house in town, new granddaughter.

Here's a recent picture of Olivia, she's 11 months old now and walking (running) everywhere!

She's such a sweetheart! always smiling. I see her quite often since we live on the same street and we have a going date, I get her once a week for about 6 hours and starting this week I'll babysit her every Friday because her parents will both be working and the other 4 days she'll be at day-care.

We moved into our house on January 5, the upstairs is all done. So far we really enjoy living in the city, it's not noisy, the neighbors are all really nice and everything is so close! I don't have to plan half a day if all I want to do is go to the bank or library or do some shopping, and when I get take-out it's actually still hot when we eat it! Andy is working in finishing the basement, he should be done by, hopefully, early March. There will be a rec room, bedroom, bathroom and sewing/computer/loom room.

Which is the next thing I wanted to mention, I bought myself a Leclerc Nilus 36" floor loom.
I got it from a lady in Mississauga, it was her mother's, there is 3 garbage bags and 3 boxes full of yarn and threads for weaving and also 2 boxes of books and a binder full of notes and weaving samples (the lady (Eleanor) was a master weaver) about 2 dozen bobbins, 4 shuttles, 4 extra reeds and the list goes on. I got all this for $550!!! There is even a project on the loom so I'll be able to start as soon as it's set up in my craft room.

I can't believe it's been this long since I last posted!!!

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I've been SO busy that I've neglected my blog. My granddaughter was born on March 10, 2009, her name is Olivia, isn't she the cutest baby you've ever seen!
here she is as a newborn getting ready to go home from the hospital,
wearing the same outfit to go home that her dad wore 27 years ago.

and now. She's the cutest baby! and when she smiles it lights up her whole face, she's such a joy!

I'll be posting more pictures as she grows that's for sure!

We've also bought a house in town,



we'll be moving back in the city after 30 years of living in the country, that's going to be quite the change for us! There is a lot of work to be done to it, it hasn't been updated and it was quite dirty inside. We took possession on April 17, so it's not even 3 months yet and we're already painting! all the flooring has been chosen, light fixtures bought (most of them) today we received the casings and baseboards.

All of this has kept me busy. which is why I haven't been blogging. Needless to say I haven't had much time to knit, I've knitted a 5-hour sweater for Olivia, a scarf for my daughter Cindy who turned 30 this year, I also sewed a little jacket for Olivia and pj's for my husband Andy,
I'm hoping to start knitting and sewing again soon.

Ajour Lace from Christine Noller

Ajour Lace book from Christine Noller, contains 19 different shawl and stole patterns, lots of charts to help and a person could google the rest. Are you interested in buying it?

Sweetheart scarf is done!

I finished another project over the weekend and here it is: I really enjoyed knitting it, it was easy to work on it and watch television at the same time, which is a good thing.

I also started another project, it's a secret and I won't tell! At the same time I'll pick another project from my UFO pile, don't know which one yet, maybe the Kiyo, it would make a nice spring sweater.

In other news, we bought a house! We take possession in April, there's work to be done to it, all new flooring, redo the bathroom and we want to put in a new kitchen (we're thinking white), and build a nice recreation room in the basement. It's going to be quite a switch, we've been living in the country for the past 28 years so I'm sure it'll be an adjustment to be back in town, but we're ready for it.

Two more projects done!

I've just finished 2 more projects from my list, I'm so glad they are done! The first one is the yellow baby blanket, I wanted to finish it this week so I could give it as a baby shower gift (among other things) to my son's fiancee for our granddaughter:



I'm also done with the Mystery Stole 4, aka: Serendipity, it's a big relief to have this one done, I had a lot of problems with joining the 2 halves, just couldn't do it the way it was explained so I finally did the Kitchener stitch, if you look really close you can see where it was joined but I figure if you can see it you're too close! This is not the best of pictures and there is some beads in matte gold but you can't really see them.



I'm still working on the "Two Dozen Rosebuds and Sweetheart scarf" I'm done with the first half and I started on the second half, its supposed to have a whole bunch of garter stitch rows in the middle but I thought I would try and just start knitting the chart again, looks good to me.



So, now I have to decide what else I'm going to finish from my UFO list or if I'm going to start on something new?!

A new sweater & a new project

I knitted a baby sweater last week, it's a 5-hour sweater which took me about 6 1/2 hours. I used worsted weight yarn and size 10 1/2 (6.5 mm) needles.
It's a pretty easy pattern to follow, I changed the end of the sleeves, I didn't like the way the regular ribbing looked so I matched the bottom of the sweater, I also added an I-cord to tie in front, I think it looks good.



I also started a new project, it will be a scarf, it's called "Two Dozen Rosebuds and Sweetheart scarf", (thank you Iris) I'm using garner color, laceweight yarn, if you look closely you can see hearts and little rosebuds. It took me 3 tries! I tried fingering weight and that was too big then I tried laceweight and that was too small, then I added 1 repeat width wise and it's turning out just right!



Regarding my New Year's resolution, I also finished my mystery 4 stole, it's blocking right now so hopefully I'll have a picture soon. I'm also working on the yellow baby blanket every morning, it's easy to work on and I don't have to finish a row if I have to put it away quickly. I'm also thinking of canceling a stole I've been working on, seems like a lot of work and I don't particularly like the project, we'll see.

It's been cold around here and we've been getting a fair amount of snow, I have to say that I really do enjoy walking outside this time of year, it's so nice and peaceful.

Busy week!

Well I've had a busy week, I finished 2 of my eleven projects, only 9 to go! I finished Andy's slippers today and he's already wearing them.



and I finished and dyed my 2008 calendar scarf this is the before:




and this is the after:



I really like the way that turned out, exactly the color I wanted, might be too bright for some but I love it! and yes it's as bright as it looks :)

This week I'll be working on Mystery 4 stole, that's almost done, and on the yellow baby blanket, hopefully that's done by next Sunday. I have to get started on Andy's pj's.

I also have to take care of some company business, I also have quite a few errands to run so it'll be another busy week!

We're supposed to have a really cold spell later on this week so I guess I'll have a lot of time to knit.

My knitting and life goals for 2009

I have quite a few projects on the needles and I'm really going to try and finish them before I start anything new (yeah, right!) I also want to knit from my stash before buying any new yarn (yeah, right!) but I will try, so here goes.

KNITTING GOALS FOR 2009:

First of all I have to finish the following:
1. green lacy cardigan (65% done)
2. Kioto sweater (25% done)
3. 3 scarves (different stages)
4. Mystery stole 4 (95% done)
5. 2008 Swedish Calendar scarf (90% done)
6. St. Brigid sweater (25% done)
7. slippers for Andy (50% done)
8. Casablanca (75% done)
9. blue baby blanket
10. yellow baby blanket
11. and any other one I might find in my craft room ;)

I'm kind of dedicating the month of January to finish a lot of this knitting, no pressure. And I have a gazillion projects I'd like to do :) I'd like to do some sewing too, I made myself a couple pairs of pj's and I bought fabric to make one for Andy, I also want to make myself a few tops for the summer. All this should keep me out of trouble, lol!

Regarding my surgery, everything is healing really well, by this time next year it will be hard to see any scars, which does not bother me in the least! The operation has given me the incentive I needed and I really want to lose 20 pounds, not an easy feat since the only exercise I can do is walking, but I will give it my best shot.

What I've been up to

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted! I guess time got away from me! I'm feeling a lot better from my surgery, everything is healing quite well, looks like there won't be much scaring when all is said and done, not that I'll be going to a nudist beach any time soon lol! I'm doing more and more each day, Andy made sure I didn't do anything for 4 weeks! He was the greatest nurse a woman could ask for, he did all the cooking, laundry, housework and he even went grocery shopping!

I've been knitting a lot since there was not much else I could do,
one of my projects is this scarf,
I'm using bare wool from KnitPicks, I'll be dyeing it a chartreuse color (limey green)
when I'm done which should be by the end of December, it's really easy to knit.


I'm also working on these
two scarves, the blue one is for a friend's son

and the melon one is probably going to be for this friend,
hopefully done by Christmas.


I also finished this turquoise stole,
it's called "Way of Life" it's designed
by Birgit you can see some of her other the patterns here,
which I knitted for my daughter Cindy (here she is with her husband Mike)
don't they make the cutest couple!,
she chose the yarn color but I kept the pattern a secret, it was a KAL which lasted 8 weeks,
she really likes it.

There's a couple other projects I'm working on but I've put them aside while I finish
the scarves. I'm getting tired of having so many projects on the go, I'll have to do
something about that.

I will try and post more often from now on.