Knitting and Crocheting Blog Week Day 7 -Your Time, Your Place

 

Where and how do you take time out to knit and/or crochet? Maybe you don’t take time out at all and instead have your needles twirling as you try to juggle a multitude of other tasks with no ‘spare’ time to think of. Maybe you enjoy nothing more than to crochet whilst  winding down from a yoga session, chatting with some friends in a nearby cafe.

Whether social or solitary, tell readers about your crafting time and space, and where you either most enjoy (or can simply find a few snatched moments) to turn yarn into something even more beautiful.

Topic today is ‘where and how’ do I “find time’ to knit.  The easy answer is ‘all the time’!  I knit every chance I get.  I have knitting in my purse.  In fact, I bought this purse specifically because it will fit knitting.  I knit basically any time I’m sitting -in the car, at the doctor’s office, at the arena.  I even knit standing in the hall waiting for Ella to be done at Brownies.  I knit every evening while watching tv with Colin.  I definitely knit on Sundays while ‘watching’ NASCAR’.  Knitting was a life saver when we were on the Board of the Ottawa Valley Food Co-op.  It definitely has kept me from killing people  🙂  And of course, as you’ve seen before, I always take knitting with me when we travel.  I’m lucky and when we travel (with Grandma or Colin) I get to ride ‘shotgun’.  Which means I get hours and hours of knitting time.  I also do a lot of knitting when I go visiting.  It’s easy to talk and knit.

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Knitting and Crocheting Blog Week Day 6 -Knitting Poll

 

Think of a knitting or crochet related question (it can be literally anything from favourite yarn weight or colour to which month readers believe they complete most projects) and host a simple survey. Hopefully once Knitting And Crochet Blog Week is over this year you’ll have that information as inspiration for yet another blog post when you are ready to write about your findings.

What is your favourite hand work project?

knitting

crochet

embroidery

cross stitch

quilting

sewing (clothes, etc)

other

pollcode.com free polls

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Knitting and Crocheting Blog Week Day 5 -Something a Bit Different

It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog. You may choose to create a podcast, or vlog, create a wordless post, a beautiful infographic or write in verse. You can post on any topic you like, but be sure to post in a style different from your usual blog presentation.

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Knitting and Crocheting Blog Week Day 4 -Bags of Fun

Today’s challenge for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is to ‘spill your knitting bag’.  So here it goes:

This was the bag I took to my sister’s in Scarborough.  So I’ve got two pairs of socks on the go (don’t want to run out of knitting on holidays).  I love Ziploc baggies.  They are great for keeping project separate/together.  Especially my Bulgarian knee socks since they have a bunch of colours.  I’ve got the notebook where I worked out the math for my knee socks (I have figure skater calves, so most patterns don’t fit).  I brought my TARDIS socks for the times when you need mindless knitting.  And as you can see, they are hand painted merino just like I discussed on Monday.  My knitting bag isn’t complete without my hand work hussif.

What’s in my hussif?  Well, since I don’t like not having what I need, it has a bit of everything:

My notebook for patterns and ideas.  My adorable embroidery scissors.  I love these little scissors.  Pretty stitch holders that I got during a Christmas swap once.  Hard ruler, I like this for measuring gauge.  I got this one from another Christmas swap and it’s great.  Unlike the ones I find here, it’s actually got the old Canadian/English needle sizes as well as American and metric.  I have a lot of old needles so it’s helpful.  Long (120″) measuring tape is fairly self-explanatory.  And finally there’s my needle book.  It’s just a little felt ‘book’ with a couple ‘pages’ of fabric.  This holds my darning needles and some knitting straight pins/safety pins.  I’ve also got a small stitch holder (by the notebook) in case I need it.

I need to make a few more hussifs so I can have one in every knitting bag.

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Knitting and Crocheting Blog Week -Day 2 -It’s All About You

Today we’re supposed to blog about ourselves.  So I thought I’d do a “10 Things You Don’t Know About Me” post.

1.  I grew up in a small town in southern Ontario called Bowmanville.  I never intended to marry a farmer and move out to the ‘boonies’.  But I am so glad that I did.  This is where I’m meant to be.

2.  I hate the dark.  Like seriously.  I stayed with a friend once who lived in the basement.  The bedroom was so dark, I woke up in the night and actually had an asthma/panic attack!

3.  Growing up all I wanted to do was get married and have babies.  It soon became clear, at school, that that wasn’t a suitable answer to “what I wanted to be”.  I would say ‘nurse’ or ‘teacher’.  So much for the feminist ideal that a woman can be ‘whatever she wants to be’.

4.  I worked 8 years in the ‘back office’ of a stock brokerage in downtown Toronto.  It’s the same place Auntie Belinda now works.  Luckily I was rescued (yes, rescued) and have been 12 years at the best job in the world.

5.  My musical taste is rather eclectic.  But I really I love 80’s music.  Especially the ‘hair bands’.  In concert I’ve seen: Def Leppard, Areosmith (who I met), Pink Floyd, John Cougar Mellencamp, April Wine, Triumph, Crash Test Dummies, Johnny Cash, Irish Rovers, and Great Big Sea.

6.  I have far too much fabric and far too much yarn -but don’t tell Colin I said that.

7.  I actually enjoy doing laundry and grocery shopping.  But I hate having to schlep it all around.  If someone else hung the laundry outside (and brought it back in) and put the groceries away after I get home, I would be much happier.

8.  I had an abusive childhood.  My dad would say lots of hurtful things.  I used to wish he would hit me so I could have bruises for evidence to get us help.  Some days Colin still  has to deal with the fallout from that.  Ella has a guarded relationship with my dad.  He seems to have changed in his old age.  I hope it’s true.  But I watch…

9. I went through the entire Guiding program.  I was a Brownie, a Guide, a Pathfinder, and a Cadet (not to be confused with army/air cadets).  I earned my All Round cord and my Canada cord.  It might be different now (the programs are so easy), but not many girls earned those!

10.  I wouldn’t change a thing, because then I wouldn’t be me.  I wouldn’t have met Colin and I wouldn’t have my beautiful girl.

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Knitting & Crocheting Blog Week 6 Day 1 -If I Were Yarn…

Starting off Knitting and Crochet Blog Week with an easy topic.

If you were a type or brand of yarn, which would you be? Are you a classic pure wool? Is there extra tension but a bit of bounce in you because of your high twist? Would you be more like a high-maintenance, strictly hand-wash fluffy angora or a ‘bring it on’ acrylic, bravely heading into the world of possible baby-sick laundering disasters knowing that you will always come out bright and unharmed?

“If I were yarn” what kind would I be?  I would be a superwash merino, likely in fingering size.  Merino is my favourite wool.  It is so soft.  Everyone in my family can wear it and most of them don’t know even know it’s wool!  I would want to be superwash that way people wouldn’t be afraid to knit with me.  They could toss me in the wash (within reason) without ruining me.

They didn’t ask what colour I would want to be but I will tell you any way.  I would want to be a gorgeous hand paint, like I often buy from Knit Picks.  I’d like to be fingering size because that’s my favourite for knitting.  It’s so versatile, makes socks, make a sweater, or make a gorgeous shawl all with this same ball of wool.

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Yarn Along -8 May 2013 -Extra Credit Edition

 

Wow, it’s getting harder and harder to get school done every day.  It’s just so beautiful!  Really I should try doing school in the afternoon so we can take advantage of the cool mornings.  But I don’t know if I can get her to do that either.

Coming along on Ella’s cat.  I really like the way her yarn turned out.  Maybe we’ll have to try dying some more this summer.

For Knitting and Crochet Blog Week this year, the extra credit assignment was to make something that represents our house.  So I have made this:

This tea cozy is for my Grandma, I’m sure she’ll love it.

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Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2013 -Day 6

Today’s topic is ‘tools to covet’.  I knew right away which tool to tell you about.

This is a yarn swift.  I think it is a must have tool for anyone who loves to knit with the really nice yarn that always seems to come in skeins.  It doesn’t complain about holding your yarn -like husbands and children.  And it sure beats trying to hold the skein on your feet and wind it yourself.  This is just like the one my sister got me for Christmas a couple of years ago.  I wouldn’t want to be without my swift.

Another great tool I want to share is blocking wires.  I had never heard of them until a couple of years ago.  If you knit lace I can’t recommend these strongly enough.  They are so helpful for keeping sides straight and I find I use a lot less pins.

Here are the wires in action.  And of course, these floor mat square thingies are really helpful too.

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Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2013 – Day 4

Today’s subject is stash colour.  I love lots of different colours, but I really love purples.  Though my main yarn of choice these days are the hand painteds.  Show me a beautiful hand painted yarn and I will almost throw caution to the wind and ignore the wool content  🙂  That’s how come I have a couple skeins of alpaca still in my stash.

Now we’re supposed to actually check our stash and see if it matches what we think.  And yep, most of the yarn is variegated, hand-painted, or self striping.  The solid stuff has a definite purple shade.

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Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2013 -Day 2

OK, today’s task is a Mascot project.  We’re supposed to blog about “a project that embodies that house/animal…either of the animal itself or something that makes you think of the qualities of that house”

So right off I found this pattern for a bee skep teapot cozy.

It’s really cute and I’m kind of on a teapot cozy kick after making a few last year.  But then I remembered the “but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest” quality of the House of Bee, so…

Here is the Evenstar shawl.  Wow, it is so beautiful!  I just want to stuff all my WIP’s behind the chesterfield and start this shawl.  It makes my fingers actually itch to start knitting.  One of the only things that hold me back is I’d have to buy the yarn.  If I had the right stuff in my stash, I’d have a very hard time resisting.

And just to prove how distracted I can be by “bright and shiny things”

This dress is so amazing.  But it also shows how ‘flighty’ I am.  This dress has no place in my life at this time, nor would it fit/flatter this body I’m currently dealing with -but, sigh!

How do I make my decisions for projects?  That’s a hard one.  Before Ravelry I owned a lot of books, but they get so dated so fast.  I also possess a lot of my Grandma’s knitting books.  But those are mostly baby books or else snug fitting 40’s sweaters and dresses.  Now that I have Ravelry, I often just stop by and see what patterns they are profiling that day.  Or I have an idea of what I want ( a scarf or toy or whatever) or I have a certain yarn I want to use.  I just plug all the information into the pattern search section and see what Ravelry suggests.  More often than not I find the perfect pattern -bonus, they are usually free or really cheap.  No more having to spend $50 on a knitting book for one or two usable patterns.

How do you choose your next craft project?

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