Baby Set

This is the baby set, I just finished for Baby Sophia, who was born at the beginning of September.



I finished the sweater back in July when we found out a baby was on it's way. The parents weren't divulging the sex of the child, so I waited until the baby was born before adding the buttons. I'd also purchased some navy mission falls wool to make a hat and booties to complete the set, but when the baby was born and it was a girl, I just couldn't do it. The navy looked too masculine. I decided that purple went well with the green and picked up some more yarn. The buttons are from The Purple Purl, as is all the yarn, and they're such cool buttons as the tree is actually a purple tree, the buttons have not been dyed at all.



The hat was finished in about 4 days. I increased the number of cables to twelve, since the original pattern size was for a newborn and I wanted the hat to last a bit longer as the baby is already a month old.



The booties took a bit longer. I started them before the hat, but put them aside as the seams were being finicky. In the end they worked, but I had to re-do them a few times each.

3 weeks + 2 days old

Here's some current photos of Little PollyJean.




We visited PollyJean last Thursday, along with her two remaining siblings (the two black and white puppies from an earlier post didn't make it past a couple weeks old) along with her mom and aunt (the proud mother of 5 week old puppies) and her grandmother at the breeders home.



Above, from left to right are PollyJean, her brother, and her sister. Her sister is going to a home in Calgary, and her brother has yet to be spoken for.

*Although I'd love to take credit for all these photos, the only one in this post that's actually mine is the last one. The first and third images were taken by my father-in-law. The second photo was taken by Frost.

My new toy

A very brief post, in the bit of downtime I've had since Friday afternoon.

On Sunday, I went with Frost, Ma Frost, and Pa Frost antiquing in the country. Our first stop was CJ's antiques on Hwy 24 between Brantford and Waterford. The store has three outbuilding and an unoccupied house full of refinished furniture that is all stripped and refurbished on site by the owners. I didn't know about the house the first time we were there, back in July. We spent at least an hour looking at all the interesting and locale pieces they have, and I had quite a lovely chat with Casey, the father of the owner who helps mind the shop. We might have a couple of pieces to go pick up, once we have moved into the new house, which dudes, is in 28 days, or four weeks from today!

Our next stop was at the two antique shops in Waterford, which are in one big building near the stream. The antique shop at the very front has very nice stuff however it's all priced by the owner and his prices are quite high. The second antique shop at the back half of the building is owned and operated by Dave and his family but it works more or less on consignment where they have vendors who set the price and they get a percentage of the sale. The name of the antique shop aptly called the Waterford Antique Market.

The first time we visited the Waterford Antique Market back in April, was the first time I layed eyes on this new toy. In July when we were there for a second time, as it's now become a key part of our visit to my relations in Branford to go antiquing in the country, it was still there. Again I hummed and hawed over weather to get it or not but left it behind. This time round, I decided that should it still be there, I'd take it, but try to barter with the vendor as it would not have moved in the last 6 months. To my surprise it was still there and I immediately clutched it in my paws and began walking around the store with it.

An older lady, I'd say somewhere around 75 or 80 years of age, actually came up to me and said she'd had one as a child, but hers was black and silver instead of all tan. As it has no instruction booklet with it, I asked her how to thread it. Which she gladly told me how to do, and then went on her way out the back door of the shop.

So here it is, a 1940's child's singer sewing machine. Complete with a clamp to hold it to a table. I don't own a sewing machine but it's in such great condition and working order, that I can totally use it to hem pants and such.



The pint glass in this second shot is just for scale. It really is quite tiny.



And the best part of all-Made in Canada!



Now the kicker to this story is that just before leaving Waterford, we all went back into the first half of the building where the expensive antique market is. Pa Frost found in a glass cabinet a black and silver child's sewing machine just like the one I got, but it came with it's original box and instruction manuel. Which I guess explains the $225.00 price tag. Mine was a mere $125.00 with a 25% discount which would have come to $93 dollars and some change but I got the vendor to sell it to me for $80.00. My grandmother might have passed away back in April but I am proud to have inherited her barter gene.

Why Ravelry Is a Godsend

Okay so last night, I found a new feature to make me love ravelry even more.

Now I have a few wips at the moment that need to get done asap, before I die of boredom, they have been on the needles so long. The startitis flu takes me over every six weeks I have to admit. Nor does it help that the list I started to write out yesterday, of all the things I want to start and finish before Christmas, was blown out of the water last night when I realized I needed to haul ass today and cast on and finish the baby set for Frosts co-workers new baby girl. At least the sweater is done. All I have to do is whip up a hat and booties and find cute buttons, but I digress.

My new favourtie feature is in the advance pattern search area. Since lets face it, I love knitting from free patterns I find on ravelry. Be it independent, first time designers or from the plethora of free on-line knitting magazines available to us these days. Now don't get me wrong, there are also great single patterns out there that cost a few dollars here and there but I am more of a buy the book or the magazine if there are at least 5 or 3 patterns respectively that I will make somewhere down the road from it. (I've only ever purchased two pdf's pattern downloads so far since i starting knitting 5 years ago, as I don't want to fall down that black hole as well)

And that is where I get sucked in. Since I will go through books and magazines, find those patterns I will someday make, subsequently purchase said book or magazine and then come home and add it to my bookshelf. Half the time not even giving it a second glance. Until now. Last night I was trying to come up with what to make with the four skeins of manos silk blend yarn I recently purchased from my lys. While trolling through the advanced pattern search, I entered the weight of the yarn I wanted to use as DK and then for my second option under the "availability" tab, noticed in the drop down menu the "in library" option and clicked on "yes."

Which means, that the search engine looks at all the magazines, books, booklets, and those few pdf patterns that I have purchased and is stored in my on-line library, and tells me which patterns I can make from my already existing stash of patterns. It's absolutely genius. Now all I have to do is troll through those patterns that come up in the search, and co-ordinate them with yarn I already have in my stash. I will also write down in the "notes" area on each individual yarn page of my stash, what pattern I plan to use with that particular yarn. Not that it will stop me from buying knitting magazines and pattern books, but it should start to make me use some of the ones I currently have in my possession, as that is what they're for.

It makes having the amount of stash I already have listed on ravelry that much more bearable if I have some kind of idea what I'll be using it for. I may even start to add from that extra box of yarn that might be hidden under the bed into my stash page. In bits and drags of course as I don't want to give myself a heart attack.

How rocking awesome is that discovery, EH?

The real Polly Jean

So there was a bit of confusion with the litter of puppies last week. There were two liver and white female puppies that we could choose from. One had a kink in it's tail, the other did not. Frost wanted a dog with it's tail still attached not one without a tail.

We were led to believe, the one we originally wanted, which has a white mark on it's arse, (what I refer to as an upside down heart) was the one with the kink in its tail, which needed to be docked. Since somewhere down the road it could have problems with a kinked tail getting caught in whatever blah blah blah.

Then, this afternoon the breeder sent us recent photos of the puppies including this one.



Clearly this dog has an upside down heart on it's arse and it's tail still attached.

It's a bit difficult to see, but the photo below was taken the day before all but one of the puppies got their tails removed. Polly Jean is on the outer right hand side and you can see has a very straight tail. Her sister on the opposite side, on the outer left hand side, has a kink in her tail. As does the male liver dog in the middle which is a bit easier to see.



Long story short we get the puppy we wanted all along complete with it's brown button nose!



There eyes are still closed and should open up by the end of the weekend.

New Magazine

Have you seen the new knitting magazine that will be hitting the stands this fall?

It's call St-Denis Magazine and it's Premier Issue contains patters by Veronique Avery, Robin Melanson and Ysolda Teague just to name a few.



The cover shawl is amazing. I borrowed the image from the St-Denis blog. I can't wait to see this magazine at my lys. Wink Wink Hint Hint

Geek Tastic

While at the Silver Snail last week with Frost, I spotted and scored this piece of beauty. It's my very own Captain Jack and Gwen Cooper mug. After watching the week long third season of Torchwood, Children of Earth, back in July, I just had to have it. Even though I was disappointed that Ianto Jones was killed off, and that the fifth and final episode of season three was not as fulfilling as the other four episodes.



They did have some Torchwood action figures in the shop but no Jack, Gwen or Ianto in stock so the mug will suffice for now, until we go back to the UK.

KW Fair Loot

I was much more restraint than last year at the KW Fair. I don't think I've even touched any of the yarn I bought there last year but that didn't deter me from getting anything this year.

Having worked at the Purple Purl booth for the majority of the day, I finally set off with Miko and Lise in tow at 4pm to make the rounds. We had a half hour to shop. Earlier in the week, I had scoped out the list of vendors from the KW Knitters Guild site so I had a list of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. I had a total of 7 shops. I found 6 of the 7 but only purchased from three. As I had bought nothing at the Frolic back in April, I really wanted to get a few mementos from this group of vendors. To be honest, I prefer the KW to the Frolic.

First off we headed straight to see SheepStrings. From the website, I learned that the owner was showcasing a new line of hand dyed yarns. The owner no longer has a store front, which had been near Huntsville, Ontario, but is still dying yarn and wow what beautiful stuff it is. I did have a quick peak at her stuff early Saturday morning, just before the doors to the fair rooms were opened to the public, but hadn't brought my wallet with me so I didn't get anything at the time.

At the end of the day there were still beautiful skeins to be had. I got two skeins of Rainbow Sock Yarn. They don't have dye lots or colour names so no two colours will ever be duplicated exactly the same, which I love. Of course these babies won't be made into socks. With 470 yards they will most likely become shawls or scarves. I know, I've been trying to stay away from variegated yarns but these were so pretty. One has more prominent shades of blues and purples while the other has greens and browns.





While talking briefly with Karen, of Sheepstrings, I learned that she had been at this years DKC Knitter's Frolic, which I had been oblivious too. I will definitely be looking out for her on 8th May, as that is new date of next years Frolic. (I just got an email from the DKC)

My second purchase was at AB Originals. I got four buttons which I'm not sure what I'll use for yet. I love them to bits but can't for the life of me recall what tree they come from. It's some type of cone, but I'll have to get back to you on that one.



My third and finale purchase was from ZigZag Stitches. It's a boxy bag project bag, which I later learned is a free sewing pattern that I can get of the net, but I don't care as I didn't have to sew it myself. I had seen this project bag on Carole's etsy site and was hoping she'd still have some left at the end of the day. Luckily for me she had not one but two still on the rack when I got there, and when I saw that the inside was lined with pokadots fabric, I knew it was coming home with me.





So was there anything that I missed that I really really wanted? Not really, but I do have my eye for one of Tanis' Fiddlehead Mittens Kit in Blues, and a ball of Zauberball-which I hope to score at the Creative Festival next month.