Fleece Hunt

In preparation for my upcoming trip to the Winter Olympics next year I wanted to make something a little Canadian to wear while I'm cheering our athletes on. After much thought I figured a scarf would be perfect. Noticeable, but not like a walking souvenir. Sew or knit? I thought. Sew, it'll be faster and since I only plan to wear this scarf for 2 weeks there's not much point putting a lot of time into it. And fleece is warm, doesn't fray and is readily available, right? Wrong! I had no idea how hard it would be to find some decent red and white fleece! Most of the reds are orange-y as well as being a little shaggy. Bah! The fleece I am looking for does exist - I have shirt made out of it (commercially made that is). Which makes the fleece hunt all the more frustrating. And hopefully more rewarding when I find that for which I search.

Newfoundland Mittens

I saw this pattern for Newfoundland Mittens and decided to give them a try (not that I need them but they are so pretty). They were a good excuse to use Noro yarn again. I ended up using Cashmere Island because I liked the colourway more then the Kureyon yarns the store had in stock. And since I only needed one skein the extra cost wasn't too much to handle!

Knitting them up was fun, using different colours seem to make the rows go by a little faster and I enjoy watching Noro yarn stripe itself. I had a false start or two as I tried to figure out the pattern, it ended up I was trying to make it more complicated then it was.

The finished mittens remind me of stained glass, dark lead and glass of many colours. It's still too warm to be needing mittens but it's something nice to look forward to when the cooler weather begins.

Knitters' Fair

On the weekend I went to the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters' Fair. I hadn't been before so I wasn't sure what to expect. Oh my! So much lovely yarn, roving and inspiration! Two rooms of the convention centre were taken over with vendors selling all things knitting. My game plan was to look first and then go back to buy. I did pretty well till I came across hand painted turquoise and brown wool. So soft, just my colours, but only one skein. I knew it wouldn't be there if I came back later so I bought that right away. Then a mitten kit that had almost sold out in the half hour since I first spotted it. After that I was good and concentrated on buying yarn to use for gifts. A very successful trip! I could hardly wait to get home and get the yarn photographed so I could break open the packages and cast on. So far I have cast on two of the projects, it took a little longer then expected as I forgot about having to wind the skeins into balls but now all is set for some serious knitting.

Less then four months!

Various web sources tell me I'm not the only one counting down to Christmas! I'm starting to plan gifts and this year I thought I would try making, rather then buying, a lot of my presents. Hopefully I've thought of this early enough to follow through with this! I've noticed a difference in my thought process when planning gifts this way. When buying gifts I make a list of people I want to give presents to and then think what I want to buy for each one (i.e. what would my sister like? Oh yes, a super deluxe brownie pan, I'll buy her that). Now that I'm planning to make gifts my thinking goes more like this: What would I like to make? Now who could I give that to? So it turns out that making gifts could actually be more selfish then buying them? hmm...