A 1/2 sleeve and another ball down

A long over due knitting post and then some!

I can't believe how much the summer sucks up any urge to blog right out of you. In the winter months, I was keeping my blogs to one or two a week and now the nice weathers here and it's now every couple weeks with severe lack of knitting content.

The knitting's still a slow go as well, but at least I have one of the sleeves of my 4-ways sweater going and I'm about 1/2 way done it. I do have a goal set to have my sweater finished by now, so that will keep the needles working. I want to have it finished by the first week of October because on the 13th I'm flying out to Winnipeg for my best friend Kerri's wedding and I would love to have it to wear for cool October days. I'll be there for a week and I'm very excited because I haven't seen her in 3 years, slighty nervous though because I've never even set foot on a plane and I've also never left Paisley for that long before. No need to worry though because she's in good hands! My MIL Rhonda has volunteered to take her for the week because she just happened to have a week of vacation during the same week I will be gone for. Ron will still be here, but he has to work 3-11 that whole week so thanks again (and again) to Rhonda, she's the greatest! I think a pair of socks might even be in order as a treat for Kerri, so I should probably get on that. Little to no more progress on Lola for Paisley either, so I should probably finish that too. My UFO's are starting to pile up, I best be gettin' moving! :-)

Out of the Loop

Hi everyone!
Just wanted to post that I'm back in blog land now. Unfortunately I don't have any knitterly content to report on as of right now. I'm done the back of my 4 ways sweater now and pretty much done Lola for Paisley but I haven't been able to pick up needles in a while.
Last week Ron took Pasiely and I to my parent's house in Owen Sound, we stayed for a week. It's way to hectic to knit there since Lucas, my sister's son pretty much lives there with them. He's almost 2 years old. My mom and I had to keep the kids occupied! My Dad bought them a cute little pool (well it's big for them), with a waterslide that they enjoyed the entire week. Paisley had a blast and it was nice to get out of the city.
Alot of photos were taken, it was good times had by all but now I'm out of the loop and I have to catch up on everyone's blogs. :-)

P.S. I have tried to to upload pictures, but blogger is being dumb again so I will have to add some later. Arg!

Away

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I will be away for a little while.
We had one hell of a week, I will elaborate later on, but one of the things that happend was our computer got fried some how. Ohh noooo!!!!

Rhonda has so kindly let us use her computer!! So thanks Rhonda. :-)

I've been in here for a while now checking my email and such, so I should go now, but just wanted to let everyone that reads or that I read know that I'm alive and will be back, hopefully soon!!!!

Lola

I hope everyone had a good Canada Day and our American friends are enjoying their Independence Day today. I had a great weekend even though I worked most of it (Saturday & Sunday). After work on Saturday I had a nice dinner at the in-laws. We had BBQ ribs, mmm, I also acquired a new knitting pattern.
Since I loved the Debbie Bliss Ribbed baby jacket from Special Knits so much, my MIL Rhonda found me another pattern almost the same but with larger sizes so I could make one for our little Miss P. It's called Lola and it's pretty much identical to the pattern from Special Knits. Rhonda also had several balls of some Lily Sugar Babies baby cotton in Rosy Baby in her stash which she so kindly gave to me so I could use it to make the sweater. I'm just working my way up the sleeves now because the sweater's done all in one piece. It's really very simple! :-)

Yesterday we had a nice day. Ron, Paisley and I along with Ron's bestfriend Dave and his fiance Alexis went down to the beach strip. Paisley had a blast down there with the new splash pad and we had a nice picnic by the beach. We walk down the path to Hutch's for icecream too, most of which Paisley wore. Good thing she was in her bathing suit!

Can you say ORANGE?

This weekend was paint weekend at our place. It was time for a fresh look and clean walls. The problem with the colour before this was that it was "flat" finish and a really nice blue colour that you could see every single crayon, pen and marker murals by our little budding artist Paisley and it was nearly impossible to wipe off. We thought this time we'd go with a different colour and also get semi-gloss so we could wipe the walls down better. After many coats of paint, this was our result: Tangerine Fizz

You'll have to excuse the lighting in my living room, it's terrible, but voila!! All props for this job go out to my lovely hubby Ron, it was not an easy task to cover up the previous paint job and since I'm a terrible painter, he did most of the work. When I say terrible, I really mean awful. So between my awful painting skills and Ron just plain hating it, we were quite the combo. It took a lot of paint to cover and a lot of time, we started yesterday at 3pm and didn't finish until about 3pm today so I think next time a little primer action will be in order. We're going to find a funky border to go around the top of the room because the edges were such a pain in the ass to cover.

With all that was going on, I still managed to go to Poultry Fest in Smithville, ON with my MIL Rhonda and daughter Paisley. It was good times and Paisley was getting really friendly with the chickens. Go to Rhonda's blog to see what she's been up to. Looks and sounds like she had another fun filled weekend at Gramma's house! What a lucky girl. If it doesn't sound busy enough for you, I also had to work between all this too.

If you can imagine the state that my living room was in this weekend, you will understand why I still haven't done any more knitting. I'm hoping for some quite time tonight so I can start up on my sweater again. Getting knitting time in these days has been really hard between Paisley time, house work and creating my website. If you would like to check out my site, feel free. It's just in the works and barely ready to be published yet and I hardly have any photos up, but any comments/ideas you have would be appreciated! I don't even have a domain name yet and I'm just using my sympatico webspace.

Well, that's about all I've been up to lately. I have to go now and feed my darling daughter some dinner. I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend and got lots accomplished! :-)

Only 50% Normal

Thought I'd jump on this bandwagon, so here it goes:

You Are 50% Normal (Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

I'd have to say yes to all of this and I am indeed a little bit strange sometimes. Haha, but aren't we all???

I'm such a slacker!

It's been nearly two weeks since my last post!! What a slacker I am! I've done little to no knitting either, so I'll keep this post short and sweet.

My friend as well as all of my co-workers LOVED the felted bag I made for her. She's now using it as her new purse and was showing it off on Saturday. It's so nice when the person you made the gift for shows off your work to everyone, so flattering! :-) Glad you liked it Nabila (if you're reading).

In substitute for my lack of knitting, I've been trying to work on a website for my photography. I'm so overwhelmed with what colour scheme and design I want to go with. I didn't think it would be this hard to come up with something decent. Oh well, I'll have it coming together soon. I will post up a link when I get it all up and running though so you can check it out and leave me some feedback, because as I have found out with blogging, comments and feedbacks are very helpful for getting the wheels turning!
Anyway, that's it for me tonight because my house is insanely hot right now and I'm melting away at my keyboard.

Have a good night everyone!! Hope everyone's making more knitting progress then I have been these days. :-)

The Knitting Blahhhh's

Well, it's been a while since my last post! I haven't really been knitting a whole lot lately for some reason, I guess I have the knitting blahhhh's. It's not that I'm bored with anything, infact I would love to get my sweater finished but I just haven't felt like it. I don't know what's wrong with me!!!!
Although I didn't do much knitting this week, I did manage to get a felted purse made for my friend Nabila from work. She loved my booga bag that I made when I first brought it into work and I've been promising to make her one ever since. She deserves it too, she's such a great person to work with and an awesome friend. She's probably one of the sweetest girls I know other then Mrs. K (you know who you are, ha ha)! Unfortunately, she's going away for the whole summer (I will miss her) to visit her family in Afghanistan and won't be back until school starts so I thought she could at least sport a new bag for the summer, it'll be a going away present and a congratulations present too because she just found out she got accepted to McMaster University and will be attending there in September. :-)
I did a slightly different pattern then the booga bag that I found on magknits called Sophie, by Julie Anderson for Black Sheep Bags. I thought it was adorable! It's felted and outside drying right now, don't mind the pins in the picture, I'm just having a hard time getting the twisted i-cord handles to stay where I want it too.
Blogger's being f*%$ing stupid again and I had the hardest time getting the picture up, I wonder what's up? Blogrolling's been a bit of a pain in the ass this week too.

If I haven't been knitting, what else have I been up to this week? I've been working on a website and business cards for my photography. When I get a website up a running I will post a link so you can check it out. It's about time, I've been procrastinating about this whole thing for a while now and I just have to get it done. I got offered to shoot another wedding in August and I have to meet with a couple in July for their wedding next year.

That pretty much sums up my week! I hope everyone had a great week and got lots accomplished and have yourself a safe and happy weekend!

Cosy's Done!

I finally got around to felting the cosy on Tuesday night. It didn't really felt exactly how I wanted it to be for some reason. It's just not as felted as some of the other stuff I've done, but I don't want to try and felt it more because I don't want it to shrink any further, I think that it's probably about the perfect size now so I suppose it will have to do. Other then that, I think it looks great! :-)

The mailman also delivered my postcard from my Project Spectrum pal Joanna from Poland today. That was a really nice surprise! I can't stress enough how much getting good mail really makes your day. It is beautiful too, she painted it and it's so detailed and gorgeous...I love it. :-) Thanks, Joanna. I was so happy to hear that she received mine as well before June hit.
I'm not too sure why blogger is rotating the image that I took of the postcard but I guess it will do. :-(
Now it's onto Blue for Project Spectrum this month, what will I think of next?????

Off to bed for me, hope everyone has a great weekend!

Too hot 2 knit Too hot 2 blog

The weekend as always, flew right by. Friday we had a "Girls Gone Wild" (wool wild) evening with my MIL Rhonda, my SIL Valerie and little Miss Paisley. First we went to Lens Mill Store because I needed some wool for the tea cozy that I'm making, then we went out for a nice dinner. I love our girl time, it's always a tonne of fun! I had to work for the rest of the weekend, but Gramma took Paisley for the night on Saturday, so Ron picked me up from work and then asked me if I would like to go out for dinner with just him, a date! I ofcourse was all for it so we went for Chinese buffet, unfortunately for the amount of money that you pay for buffet it was a little lackluster, so I don't think we'll go for buffet anymore because the last few times we've done it, it hasn't been that great. :-(
It was nice night on the town with him anyway and after dinner we took a cruise in the Jeep with the roof off. A nice way to end the night.

I found a pattern for a tea cosy, but I didn't find a felted one that I was too crazy on so I took the pattern that I liked and jumped up to a 6mm needle and knit it up. It looks great and fits my large teapot awesome, but I'm going to felt it down for a much smaller teapot. I can't wait, I just love felting! It would be done by now but it has been insanely hot in Southern Ontario and I haven't really been feeling like too much of anything. It's actually be sitting on my teapot since Sunday night. I decided to use ribbon instead of doing an i-cord or something, I'll cut the ribbon to the right size when it's all finished, but I like the look of the ribbon, it contrasts nicely with the sage green colour.

No knitting or blogging have been done for many a days, for shame.....

Touching on pretty much everything.....

The nice weather has finally come back again, too bad the long weekend is over!
I hope everyone had a good weekend despite the miserable weather. It was so cold and wet here in Ontario, maybe it was a good thing that I had to work the whole weekend. Sunday it rained for the majority of the day and it happened to be our big family day we had all planned. We went out to Pizza Hut for a nice dinner together then to the firework display in Dundas, ON. Paisley was so excited about this day, especially the fireworks because it was going to be her first time seeing them. The pan pizza was as good as always and after our meal we headed to Dundas for the fireworks. The streets seemed a little quite, but we kept driving down to find a place to park and then started to walk up to the place where they were holding the festivities. We started to get curious as to whether or not they were cancelled when people started walking back towards their cars with all their gear. A nice family stopped us and told us that nothing was going on or set up so it was probably cancelled. Ouch!!! How do you tell your excited 2 year old that the fireworks are cancelled? We ended up just taking her home and then we went for a walk and saw some backyard fireworks. She was a little disappointed but happy that she got to try out her new Dora flashlight that I got her at work earlier that day. Ron and I were both hoping for a better day on Monday because they were rescheduling them for that night. Although Monday did not look too promising for most of the day, it didn't rain and it cleared up and got sunny right after dinner. We drove back down to Dundas to find everything was on for the fireworks found a spot at the park to put our blanket out and we waited. Paisley was scared and loved the display all at the same time, she said it was a little noisy but she'd like to see them again. I've only been to Dundas once before to see the fireworks, but they were just as amazing as the first time I saw them there. I've never been a big fan of fireworks, but for some reason Dundas puts on a wicked show!!!

Now on to knitting. I didn't get too much accomplished this weekend, but I am more then half way finished the back of my sweater and getting close to the armhole shaping. I also got a nice surprise in the mail yesterday, my prize from Warming Grace arrived. It's a skein of fleece artist favourite soft mittens/sock. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet, but I have something new for my stash or lack there of. Thanks Cynthia! :-)
I also finished and mailed my postcard for Project Spectrum. I just don't want to post of a picture of it yet because I don't want to ruin the fun for my postcard pal who won't receive it for a little while yet.

Does anyone know a good pattern for a felted Tea Cozy? I've done some searching online but I was unable to find one that I liked. It's going to be a gift for someone who is very good to us and especially Paisley.

Well, that's about all I can cram into one post for today! So, I'm going to investigate my darling daughter for more signs of chicken pox, yes...chicken pox, I'm pretty sure she's getting them because new dots keep appearing and all the kids in the neighbourhood have either had them or have them now.

Two Crazy Weeks

It's been 2 crazy and busy weeks for me. As of Monday night at 10pm when I punched out of work, I was at 40 hours on my time clock card. That is an insane amount of hours for me considering that last Sunday (May 7th) was the starting of the pay period. I'm still in tonight, tomorrow night and right through the weekend. As it stands though, I have Sunday and Monday evenings off and just work in the morning which is nice because we have some plans. We want to take Paisley to her first firework display and do some fun family type stuff. :-)

On Mother's Day, my parents came down from Owen Sound for dinner. While I was at work in the morning, Ron got the chicken and the rest of the food ready for dinner so that I wouldn't have as much to do later. What a guy, he ended up staying up until 4pm finishing the whole dinner even though I told him to go to be because he need to sleep before going into work for night shift. He's so stubborn sometimes! As always, the dinner was fantasic because Ron's an amazing cheif, I swear it's his calling in life....
As for knitting, I completed only one of the Mother's Day socks. My mom did try them on when they were down on Sunday and thought they were really cute. Thank goodness, she is a very patient lady and is happy waiting until I get the last sock done. I also casted on for my sweater on Sunday night after Paisley went to bed. I have a few inches done on the back now and it's coming along. It's going to be knit with the Paton's Decor that I got for my birthday from my MIL Rhonda. It's 75% acrylic 25% wool, and is very nice blend to knit with compared to some of the stuff I've been using lately. It has a really nice feel to it with that 25% wool. I'm happy so far.

What else have I been up do?

I've been working on my Project Spectrum All things green postcard that I need to get mailed out this week. I'm hoping to have it finished by tomorrow at the very latest because it has to go all the way to Poland. It's coming along though and I think it's going to be nice when it's all finished. :-)

To substitute for my lack of photos, I had to sneak a picture of Paisley in. Now at least there's a little colour.

A Lack of Knitting!

Not too much knitting is happening in my neck of the woods lately. I just seem to be consumed with housework, Paisley and work so far this week. My shifts have picked up a little for now, so we'll see how long it lasts.

Ron also taught me how to do Sudoku on Monday, so I've been trying to do them. I did one puzzle completely on my own with no help and now I'm stuck on the second one, I've erased it and started it twice now and I still can't finish it. They can be so hard, especially since I'm not very fast at it yet and I'm not familiar with all the tricks of the trade. I can see how they can be very addictive though. I had a lot of fun doing the first one and it only took me about an hour. That could have been an hour of knitting time though.....oh oh!

Cynthia announced the winners from the Warming Grace draw and it turns out I'm a winner. Woot, woot! I rarely win anything, so this is extremely cool. It's sign to keep knitting and more good things will come out of it! I won a skein of Fleece Artist Favourite Soft Mittens. How appropriate since I'm absolutely smitten4mittens, hehe. Cynthia actually emailed me to tell me how bizarre it was that I won that particular prize.

Well, I've got to go fold some laundry (I know what you're thinking, how lucky of a girl I am to have to fold laundry on this nice beautiful day) and I have to give the house a quick tidy before I go to work tonight.

Have a super, fabulous day!

The Night Is My Oyster

My house is clean, laundry's done, put away and Paisley's sleeping. Now the night is my oyster, at least for the next 2 hours before I go to bed.

It's just been one of those days and I'm pooped right out. Paisley was a busy girl and had a day full of playing with her friends and alot of that time included me being there to monitor. They actually came over later in the afternoon and played at my house for a few hours which was easier then playing out front. It was really my first experience with P having friends over and it didn't go too badly. My friend Mandy who was a nanny for quite a few years told me that kids entertain one another and man she was right, P hardly bothered with me at all (minus the few times I had to intervene over a toy fight). I'm so used to Paisley wanting me to play all the time and having a hard time trying to complete all my housework. I actually got a head start on finishing my laundry and just some "me" time on the computer which is right beside the livingroom where they were playing. They even cleaned up all the toys when they decided that they wanted to go out back to play in the sandbox.

My MIL Rhonda popped by unexpectedly tonight and brought me a nice surprise! "Special Knits" by Debbie Bliss. I've been in love with that book ever since I borrowed it from the library. I even renewed it 1 time just to keep it a bit longer. Now I have it all to myself! She also got herself a copy in hardcover.
As well as the book there was also a bunch of extra circular needles. Some I have and some I don't but a girl can never have enough knitting needles. She just replaced most of her circs with the bamboo ones and then ofcouse she has all of her Addi Turbos.

I haven't done too much knitting this week. I casted on for a pair of socks last night just to relieve myself from knitting bug. I just didn't feel like getting too involved with a huge project just yet because I went a little overboard last week with the little sweater.

What Flower Are You?

I saw this on Samantha's blog today, thought it was fun and gave it a try. I answered the questions truthfully as humanly possible and below was my result. One of my very favourite flowers too, go figure!

You Are A Lily

You are a nurturer and all around natural therapist. People see you as their rock. And they are able to depend on you. You are a soothing influence. You can make people feel better with a few words. Your caring has more of an impact than even you realize.

What Flower Are You?

Sweatshirt is Done!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. The weather was nice and sunny here in Hamilton, but a little on the chilly side.


I finally finished the Top Down Sweatshirt for Paisley's little friend next door. Unfortunately not in time for the party on Saturday but it did go in the bag with the other part of the present. I just kept the last sleeve that needed to be done on the stitch holder then took the sweater home with me to finish up. The sweater went over well at the party with the parents. I'm glad that they thought it was cool even though it wasn't quite ready yet. They especially liked the little flower buttons I stitched. :-)
Paisley had a blast at the party! It's only the 3rd birthday party that she's ever been too. Amanda, my neighbour had a bunch of crafty stuff organized for the kids. I designed and cut little crowns out of bristol board for her as she was busy running around like a chicken with her head cut off getting ready for the party. She had glitter glue, ribbon, little tiny fabric butterflies and flowers, stickers and the funky fabric scissors that make the neat edges (sorry can't think of the actually name of that type of scissor). Instead of cake she made giant cupcakes and the kids each got to decorate their own. Every kind of sprinkle under the sun was in bowls at the table, it was messy but fun for the kiddies!
Well, I'm going to jet and take little miss ants in her pants outside, she's going insane here beside me right now and needs to burn off this penned up energy.
Have a great day all!

Excuse The Mess!

My blog was in need of change. Please bear with me as I slowly will be changing things around!

Thanks!

~Jenn

Wicked Progress on B-Day Gift

I'm making wicked progress on the Top Down Sweatshirt. I've got the sleeves on holders and I'm less then 1" away from starting the pouch.
I decided to make the size 4 instead of the 2 (it jumps from 2 to 4). I just hope it's not going to be too big but I wanted her to get the extra wear out of it. She's 8 months older then Paisley but they're about the same height and Briana's a little bigger in the shoulder and chest.
Tonight's also a big night for Jenn because 2 stitches were accidentally dropped down a few rows and I got the trusty old crochet hook out and picked them back up myself and it actually worked out. Usually I get incredibly confused when stitches are dropped and I need to seek the help of my MIL but I got the balls up to just try and do it myself tonight because I'm on a limited time to finish this.

Paisley was really enjoying her oranges this morning at breakfast. Infact, she got me making "orange smiles" with her. I then ofcourse had to run and get the camera for a photo-op. The unfortunate part of this cute moment was that after it was all done she got a hold of my knitting on the table and got the sweater all gucky with orange mess. I took a damp cloth to it but one it's all finished, I'll try and work at it a little more.

How could you be mad at a face like that though??

Ugly Weekend

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Due to the ugly weather we had in Southern Ontario, I feel like I got a lot accomplished knit wise. The Simply Lovely Lace Socks were christened for the first time on Saturday, they fit nice after my MIL Rhonda helped me rip out the picot edge that I sewed up to tight (I couldn't get the sock over my foot). Sewing's just not my forte! :-)
I also had almost an entire 50g ball left over of the Sirdar Snuggly DK left over from my socks that I had to make Paisley a pair to match. I just used the Basic Sock Pattern in the Top Down For Toddlers book and did a picot edge instead of the ribbing that they were using in the pattern.
Paisley got invited to a birthday party next Saturday, the little girl will be 3 years old and I thought as I was going through the Top Down For Toddlers book I'd make her a sweater. I found one that I liked called "Sweatshirt Style"(page 69 if you own the book), it's like a kangaroo sweater with out the hood and the sleeves are kind of like the 31/4 length style. It's really cute! I got a little bit of a start on it last night and after 2 previous attemps and a little frogging action I'm almost finished the increases. I think it will be another pattern to go on my "Knit it Quick Picks". The bonus is, it's a no sew-completely seamless so once it's done it's done!

So I guess, once again my sweater is on hold a little longer. My goal is to a least have it done for the fall....

Lace Sock Nearly Finished!

My Simply Lovely Lace Socks are nearing completion. All I have to do is graft the toe, sew up my picot edge and tie in my ends, WHOO HOO!!! :-)









The squares for Warming Grace are almost done. I just have one more on the needles now. I think I'll be putting them in the mail tomorrow though!


Good news! My cousin had a little baby girl yesterday morning, so it looks like one more little girlie sweater will be made to give to her as she got a heck of a lot of greens and yellows for gifts at her shower. I am super stoked for her because she has a little boy who is 4 so now she has one of each. I can't wait to see the little bundle of joy. My neighbour also loved the Ribbed Baby Jacket and the Lilly Hat. She popped the hat on the baby's head right away and it fit perfectly.

That's pretty much it for this week! Paisley and I are going to go out and enjoy this beautiful weather we are having in Hamilton this afternoon so the needles will be away for the day or at least until tonight.