Oh The Christmas (Knitting) Panic!

Forget about not having time to buy all the presents but I am worried I am not going to finish my last knit Christmas present!

I am knitting a Fino Circle Scarf. It is 21″ wide and 72 ” deep. Why did I think this is a good idea??? It takes 980 yards of yarn. Seriously.

As of last night, I had 29.5″ out of 72″ complete. To finish by Christmas day I have to knit approximately 2.8″ per day. Or 4% of the scarf. And go to work. And be a Mom. And get everything else ready for Christmas. I was doing a bit better but then the baby and I came down with either a Bad Cold or a mild flu. Either way it sucked. I tried to knit on Friday night. I knit 2 rows and it was the hardest thing ever.

If you want to follow my panic or see if I actually finish, you can watch the progress on my Ravelry project page because I likely will not have time to even remember I have a blog!!

Princess Twilight Sparkle!

My daughter wanted to be Princess Twilight Sparkle for Halloween this year. I was determined to make her the costume.

First off, who is Princess Twilight Sparkle? She is the main pony in the latest generation of My Little Pony (called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). My Little Pony is seriously an awesome show. I do  not know which one of us enjoys it more! The theme song is the first song my baby boy ever recognized. She was a unicorn, but in the last episode of the most recent season, she became an alicorn princess. An alicorn is basically a unicorn with wings.

I sewed the dress at my mom`s house using her sewing machine. I am not really one who sews so this is a Big Deal for me. I had my mom on hand for any mishaps. Luckily there were not too many, and they were mostly sewing machine related. I sewed the whole thing myself. I proudly brought the dress home and it was way too small for a fabric with no give. So off to my mom`s house the next weekend to sew a second dress. I did everything but the hem on this dress because I was running out of time and had to go home and make supper.

At home I cut a cutie mark out of felt and used my rudimentary hand sewing skills to attach it to the dress. I also made the yarn wig and tail and sewed the tail on the dress.

The tiara and ears were store-bought. The wings were ones from my daughter`s stash of fairy things.

My daughter was so excited to wear this to daycare today which makes me so happy because it is the first awesome Halloween costume I have made for her! She also believes I can make everything. Last night she decided she wanted me to be Princess Celestia (Twilight Sparkle`s teacher and mentor) and her Daddy to be a crab. She thought I could knit us both these costumes in time for today. I love that she believes I can do everything!

One Week: What Would You Do?

Have you seen the movie One Week starring Joshua Jackson? I saw it a few years ago and rather enjoyed it in a morbid way. I remember I cried at the end of it. A lot. It was a messy ugly snotty cry.

I am not in the same situation but I only have one week of my maternity leave left and for some reason I keep on thinking about this movie.

What would you do?

I tried to get as much of my errands done before this week (thank you internet for allowing me to do some shopping online!) so we could relax at home and have a chill week. Maybe watch a few movies. Maybe One Week will be on! And visit daycare so my baby boy will not have a complete meltdown or baby version of a panic attack when he starts. To say he is shy is a bit of an understatement.

But life being as it is, changes thing. Our pipes needed Roto Rootering (is that a word?). Our basement shower was supposedly not pretty this weekend. My husband dealt with it because I was busy with a sick baby. He had a fever Friday and Saturday. Yesterday morning his fever had broken and he had a good day and slept a lot. Which meant of course that he only had one ½ hour nap today despite the fact that he was grumpy and clearly needed a nap. And we had Roto Rooter come this morning. So my day was not quite so chill and my house had eau de sewer today.

I am excited to return to work. But at the same time I am one big ball of anxiety for my baby to go to daycare.

Christmas Knitting!

I hope I have not taken on more than I can chew, or knit. I have decided to knit Christmas gifts this year (and some birthday knits).

First up is my first finished Christmas knit.

This is my Thistle scarf by Tin Can Knits. They are having a KAL from September 15 to November 15 so I thought it was the perfect time to knit this scarf! I managed to get my hands on 2 precious skeins of the March 2011 colour from Tanis Fiber Arts Year in Colour Club! It is Purple Label and the colour is called Clover. The Purple Label is an incredibly soft fingering weight composed of 70% merino, 20% cashmere, and 10% nylon. It is for someone who loves the colour green.

I am also making a Fino Circle Scarf for someone this year!

I was originally going to make another Thistle with this yarn but one of the skeins was not subtly variegated and it looked terrible (and that is me being polite). The recipient likes circle scarves and I can easily knit this while watching swimming lessons and ballet class and I can knit it on the bus when I go back to work (EEP). Because the skeins are too different from each other, I have decided to put a subtle stripe in this but alternating the skeins every 11 rows. I think I like it. I hope the recipient does.   It is made from Manos Del Uruguay Fino which is a single ply fingering weight which is 70% merino and 30% silk. It is so soft and drapey. The one suggestion I have if you are going  to knit with this is DO NOT USE A CENTRE PULL BALL. Take the yarn from the outside. It catches and gets stuck on itself like nobody`s business. I bought this yarn at Wolseley Wool, they had a lot of beautiful colours when I was in the store but I was looking for a more neutral colour.

My final project that I have started is a Fairy Mist Cowl.

 

This is the only project so far where I bought the skein first and then had to find a pattern. I got it in the Tanis Fiber Arts OOAK sale in September. It is a Pink Label called Turnover and it has beautiful pops of teal and purple and grey and a lot of other subtle colours. I do not have a fancy enough camera to capture the beauty of the yarn. The colours are perfect for the recipient but I had to find a pattern where the yarn and the pattern do not compete with each other. I also had to find a pattern that has more interest than just plain stockinette stitch because there is only so much of that I can do!

I have more Christmas knitting planned! I hope I can get to it all!

Are you doing any Christmas knitting?

 

Lesson Learned

This week I decided to stop the insanity of knitting sleeves one at a time.

And it was SUPER awesome. The sleeves were done in no time at all.

And then it came to the spot where I join them to the sweater and I discovered that one sleeve was 2 stitches too narrow. In worsted weight.

So now I have to re-knit the sleeve.

 

Little Boy Blue

I have a lot of FO’s that do not have pictures yet. But yesterday I managed to get some semi decent ones which is a miracle considering they were on an almost 1 year old who was busy playing in his play area!

First up is the Antler Hat by Tin Can Knits. I used Berroco Vintage in in 5117 Chambray. This was a nice and easy and quick knit which is just what I Needed this week! In fact, I enjoyed this knit so much, an Antler Cardigan popped onto my needles today in the leftover yarn from my husband’s Campfire sweater! The only problem with the pattern was a mistake in the decreases which was easy enough to deal with! I made the Child size and I think it fits his giant noggin wonderfully, with room to grow! Someone will be getting a matching hat for Christmas and in the off chance, this person reads my blog, I’m not saying who!

 

I also got a picture of the Sunnyside I made using Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label in Midnight! I actually knit this in the summer, the majority of it while visiting my Dad and step mom in Nova Scotia. I procrastinated putting buttons on it but now here it is! The only problem I have with this sweater is that no matter how many times I sew up one of the armpit holes, it seems to always come back. One day, I suppose I will do it correctly.

 

Can you believe my baby is almost a year old?? I am going to miss this face lunging at me all day long when I am at work.

Allergies: A New Era

I have asthma and allergies. Which  means my kids have a chance at getting asthma or allergies. My daughter is so far allergy free which is awesome but we think the baby (almost a toddler – where has the time gone!) has some allergies.

So far it is to chicken and eggs.

Who doesn’t love a chicken in a sweater?!?

 

We have suspected the egg allergy for a few months now. Of course chicken was the first food we gave him so we had to re-test all the foods we started with. Once we cut the chicken out of his diet, the majority of his puking stopping but he was still gassy and irritable. When *I* cut chicken out of my diet, he was no longer gassy and irritable.

Of course because of this, I was reluctant to test anything poultry-related.

But he is turning one soon and I am going back to work so I needed to at least test egg. Tonight was his third exposure and almost immediately after, his eye lid got swollen and red.

Because of the chicken problem we’ve decided that this is IT. No more poultry exposure until we talk to the Doctor about this. Of course, we have Thanksgiving to conquer between now and his one year appointment.

Do your kids have allergies? How do you deal with it?

Will I have to get a new winter jacket without down in it?

I am Still a Sweaty Ukrainian

I wanted to like the Delish Naturals Hippie Pits deodorant but I think I am too sweaty to wear it on a regular basis. I will wear it when I am wearing a tank top and hanging out at home or at the cottage. Anything other than that and I feel my armpits are too damp/smelly.

I wore a t-shirt yesterday with it and took a walk to the drug store. It was only around 22*C when I did this and I was just so uncomfortable I had to change to a tank top when I got home.

I do like that there are no chemicals in the deodorant so it is better for me and left me with softer and smoother armpits. But on the flip side, since there are no chemicals in it, I felt like my armpits were constantly damp, I felt self-conscious that I may smell, I felt i had to wash my armpits a few times a day sometimes, and they were sometimes itchy (I think because of the dampness).

Do any of you use a more natural deodorant?

Not Quite FOs

Why is it so hard to weave in the ends/sew on buttons/block my knitting?

I have a collection growing…

I still have the Snowflake from my July, and and the Sorello from June to officially finish! I also have 1.5 baby socks to weave in the ends.

In August I have started and mostly finished a few things.

This is the cabled version of Sunnyside using Tanis Fiber Arts in the Blue Label colourway of Midnight. I think it is the 12-18  months size but of course I didn’t specify on Ravelry so I cannot guarantee it! I personally feel this colour is a bit darker than I was able to capture. All I have left to do is buy buttons, sew buttons, and weave in the ends. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I will probably not block this.

I knit a 1-2 year version of Campfire by Tin Can Knits. After MANY attempts of the fair isle, I found a wonderful blog post that helped me figure out how to make it look nice.

Look familiar? If you’ve looked in my Ravelry projects, you may have noticed I did an ugly adult version for my husband (yep….matching father/son sweater!). Now that I’ve found a blog post that helped me so much with fair isle, I am going to actually rip back my husband’s sweater so I can redo the fair isle part. And maybe make it a touch longer since I’m doing that anyways! This sweater needs the ends woven in, the armpits attached, and the shawl collar attached.

And now, I’m using the yarn my daughter picked out from Have a Yarn in Mahone Bay. She picked out a variegated pink yarn for the main colour in her skirt.

 

I personally feel this looks like pink camo. I am NOT a fan of camo, especially pink camo but my daughter LOVES it. I am just finishing off the end of the first valence and then I will cast on in a beautiful purple for the bottom valence. I need to get an elastic to finish this one off.

Will I actually buy all the buttons and elastic I need this week???? I guess you’ll have to watch my ravelry project page to find out!

Mahone Bay

On Saturday we came back from a lovely vacation!

 

One day, our family went to a little tourist town called Mahone Bay.

 

English: Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

It has been my favourite place to visit since the first time my Dad and I went there one October and they were having a scarecrow festival. Everyone in the little town gets together and decorates the whole place with scarecrows. These aren’t your regular scarecrows like in the Wizard of Oz. It was nearly 10 years ago that we were there and I remember they had a band of scarecrows set up in the gazebo, the Peanuts characters in one yard, and pretty much scarecrows in every yard and business! My camera broke before I got to Nova Scotia so my Dad and I bought a disposable camera to take as many pictures of us with the scarecrows as we could! I will have to try to find these pictures!!

 

This time while  we were there, I made sure to visit Have a Yarn which was a delightful yarn store full of beautiful yarn. I don’t have pictures of what I bought yet so that will be in a future post. The lady that was working at the store was very nice and helpful when I told her what I wanted to get! She was also very nice about it when, in the middle of browsing my 3-year-old yelled “I have to poop!”, in the way that only 3 year olds can!

 

We browsed around a few other stores and bought bubble bath from Sugar Bubbles, tea from the Tea Brewery, margarita flavoured ice cream, and discovered the store called Teazer does not sell tea at all. We had lunch at the Mug and Anchor Pub which I consider a must if you’re visiting Nova Scotia!