Road trips and knitting

Our little family just returned (well, on Saturday night) from a last-minute whirlwind trip to Southern Ontario. Hubby had a job interview and I got the chance to reconnect with some old friends and introduce baby D. We also stayed with dear friends who are downsizing and moving to a new place (in the same city), and I was so happy to spend time with them! Their old house is very special to us, as we lived there for a month (between apartment rentals), attended weekly Bible studies there for two years, and have stayed as guests every time we visit in the years since. Of course, the family is much more special, and they'll make the new house equally so.

One of my favourite places to shop in Southern Ontario is a small chain of stores called Len's Mill. It is beyond shanty, and nearly everything there looks like it fell off the back of a truck. They sell almost every kind of household item, but their specialty (as far as I'm concerned) is their crafts department. They have all kinds of yarn, needles, and other notions (as well as fabric, but I'm going on a day trip to the States soon for that), and their prices are the cheapest around, even more so than Walmart. And really, I'd much rather support local industry over Walmart. So, even though this is the year of no yarn, I made an exception. I could not have foreseen, back in December, that my brother would be engaged and married to the love of his life within a year, and their upcoming wedding needs to be celebrated with an heirloom gift, which is now on the needles. I'm very excited to see it coming together, but it'll need the next four months' worth of my knitting attention... which is going to be a bit problematic. Here's why.

The Yarn Harlot often finds herself afflicted with "startitis", in which she wants to cast on huge numbers of projects, usually when she gets bored with her current one. I find this tends to happen to me when I've just finished a long project. Hubby says I should refer to myself as The Yarn Serial Monogamist when I comment on Yarn Harlot's blog. As I have just finished the Bergere de France top, I have all kinds of ideas for tiny, quick projects: a matching BDF top for baby D, a gift for a precious preemie born recently to friends of ours, a bolero for baby D to wear to her uncle's wedding. In order to get the heirloom gift done on time, I'll really have to limit myself to just one or two of those little projects, and I'm pretty sure the first two will win out. Particularly since I'm already halfway done the back of the BDF baby top, and I've found a pattern for a preemie kimono.

Cuteness overload: Baby D went swimming in a pool for the first time. She had previously been in a hot tub (with the temperature turned down) and to the beach. She was cautiously amused...