Happy I Love Yarn Day

What a great day.  Today is "I Love Yarn Day" as declared by the Craft Yarn Council of America.  I love these people.  Never met any of them but they have to be great people, right.  They love crafting and yarn.  Sounds good to me.

What are you doing to celebrate I Love Yarn Day?

I am planning on finishing my Rococo Shawlee (pictures posted in earlier blog post) so that I can wear it to the Woodstock Fleece Festival which is happening tomorrow.  Wow, this is going to be a great weekend for me.  Today is I Love Yarn Day, tomorrow I go to a fleece festival with a great pal and I know that I am going to buy so much yarn that I will spend Sunday playing with it and deciding what I am going to create with it.  :-)

I am so excited.

Please share you plans for this fabulous by posting in the comments section below.  I can't wait to hear how you are celebrating.

Have fun everyone.

Keep your sticks clicking.

Betty-Anne

Happy Thanksgiving Day Canada

Wow this has been an amazing weekend.  I love Thanksgiving.  Lots of time with the family and a mini vacation in Niagara.  The weather was typical Autumn weather - cool with some rain, mostly at night thankfully.  More reason to be thankful.  :-)




Back to the usual routine tomorrow.  I won't say back to the grind because it is not a grind.  I love the work I do and I love my knitting projects.

I am meeting up with a friend for coffee and I have a gift that I am knitting for her as a thank you for taking care of my dog while I was away this weekend.  I will finish it up tonight and be ready for coffee tomorrow.  These will be mug rugs made in Autumn colours.  I hope she likes them.  I will post another picture when they are complete.  I am also going to be making a set for a friend who is celebrating a birthday this month and she loves this season so they will be right at home in her decor.

When I picked up Roxy I discovered that she and my friends had become a mutual admiration society. She was very excited to see me return but she was also sad to leave her new friends.

I was not a bit jealous but in fact exceedingly grateful for my friend being so loved by my dog because that means that it was not stressful to her and it was a pleasant weekend for my friend as well.

Again more reasons to be thankful.  I am incredibly blessed and am grateful for my family and my friends as well as all my pets.  Yes Roxy has house mates.

This is my second Thanksgiving since I lost my mother but I am grateful for all the wonderful memories I have of her and all the fantastic and funny stories I have of her that I can share.  Including that she is responsible for me being the addicted knitter that I am today.

I hope all of you have had a fantastic Thanksgiving Day weekend and have had the opportunity to enjoy your family and friends as I have.

Keep your sticks clicking.

Betty-Anne

Nine More Sleeps

So are you going?

I am referring to the Woodstock Fleece Festival of course.  I cannot wait.  I have not been to this event but I hear wonderful things about it.

My sister lives in Woodstock and she will be at the festival along with the Oxwood Hooking Artisans.  They do amazing work.

I have taken a look at the vendors and man I am so excited.  There are so many that appeal to me the first of which is Cabin Fever.  I love their "No Sew, Minimal Finishing" philosophy.  I love the knitting but when it is off my sticks I want to be done and move onto my next project. Sometimes that is not to be and we need to sew but if I can find a project that avoids that then I am one happy knitter.

So many booths so little time.  The event is only one day.  Whatever will I do.  Should I take classes or devote my time and money to shopping.  Hmmmm.  What to do, what to do?!

Are you going?  Are there other events that you attend?  I would love to hear about them so please post your comments below.   Maybe there are more festivals in my future.

Keep your sticks clicking.

Betty-Anne

Frogging and Starting Over

Yesterday I posted pictures of the Rococo Shawlee that I am working on.  Last evening I received an errata notification from Annie's Attic regarding an important correction in the pattern.

As I was knitting the shawl I noticed that it seemed very fragile but I attributed it to the light airy feel of the yarn that was being worked up on larger than required needles.  Well apparently my feeling was correct because the correction was that it should be made while holding two strands together.

Now I was faced with the age old knitter's dilemma.  I was one third of the way through the project what should I do?  Yes I had completed a large portion of the project.  It was an awful lot of time to through away but really it was sort of fragile and I had been thinking that it really was not quite as warm as I thought it might be when looking at the original pattern picture.

After thinking about it for a while and talking to my husband who is wise enough to know that he should just nod and suggest that really I should trust my instincts and then just listen.  :-)

So as I was talking it through with him I realized that I still needed to sew the shoulder seams together and the fragile nature of the project and the weight (slight as it may be) would be too much for the stitching and would end up pulling and hanging incorrectly and would not look as nice as it should and I would end up disliking it and never wear it.

So naturally I frogged it (pulled it apart) and restarted.  Here is where I am with it at the moment and I must admit that I love it a lot more than I originally did and I know that once it is done it is going to become a staple of my wardrobe.

Of course my original plan was to finish this in time for our Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday but with all I have going on in the evenings this week, I do not believe it will be completed in time.  Oh well, at least I will love it when it is done.

Tell me your knitting or crocheting horror stories.  Post your tales in the comments section below.

Keep your sticks clicking.

Betty-Anne

I Am Caught In A Monsoon

I really wanted to publish this post yesterday but I was so caught up in the business side of my life that time got away from me so here we go today.

Here we are at the beginning of October (one week before the Canadian Thanksgiving) and I am caught in a monsoon.  Not really.  But the yarn that I am working with at the moment is called Monsoon by James C. Brett, and it is spectacularly glorious.  Soft and cozy and a treat to work with.  If you click on the link and then select S6 you will get a great view of the colour that I am working with.  The colours are typically fall colours which I love.

I am using this yarn on my latest project which is called Rococo Shawlee and is available for PDF download from Annie's Attic.  It is an absolute gorgeous piece and I am having a fun time knitting it.  The pattern is quite simple to memorize so this makes for quick work and a go anywhere project.

My favourite projects are the go anywhere type because I do take my knitting everywhere that I go.  In fact if you have read any of my previous posts you know that I take my knitting on all my road trips and get lots done while my husband is driving.




My goal is to have this complete by October 5 and if all goes according to plan then I will have a post ready for you.  In the meantime I have to start gathering all the information on the yarn needed for my next several projects as I am going to the Woodstock Fleece Festival on October 13th.  Can't wait.

Keep your sticks clicking.

Betty-Anne