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...

Wedding wear challenge, take 2

This time around, I opted for something I had worn to a wedding once before, but it was two years ago. Fashionista friend J here was a bridesmaid and looked lovely, as always!

The wedding was on the most perfect day of the year, weather-wise; it was warm and sunny with a bit of a breeze, which was ideal since the ceremony was outdoors at a beautiful pavilion tucked in behind Rideau Hall. Fortunately, the Queen's visit did not interfere, although navigating downtown traffic the day after Canada Day was rather beastly.

Between the ceremony and reception, we found a pub on Elgin Street offering half price appetizers, so we sat down and watched Ghana's disappointing loss to Uruguay. Best nachos I've had in awhile, though.

The reception was at a restaurant in the Dow's Lake pavilion, just minutes from where the bride's mom has lived for the past few years. Such an elegant place, right on the water where we caught a beautiful sunset! The food was amazing, the kissing games entirely suited to the couple (spelling bee/golf putting), the speeches touching and the slide show masterful- no technical glitches at all! The entire day was a gorgeous testament to the love that our dear friends Mark and Val have for each other.

My own hubby was a trooper: when we called to check in on baby D who was being looked after by my sister, she was crying and wouldn't stop, so he headed home to take care of her. He let me stay to have dessert, hear the speeches, and do a little dancing. Some wonderful friends who live near us gave me a lift home. And one more thing that made this day special (albeit really just for me): I finished knitting the back of the orange tank top! It's blocking as we speak, waiting to be sewn up.

I felt the earth move under my feet

This afternoon, after getting home from a lovely visit with my former colleagues (baby D in tow, of course), I was sitting on the couch with my laptop and baby D was napping in her swing. I heard a loud rumbling and the house started shaking, so naturally I assumed one of my neighbours was using power tools. Imagine my surprise when I ran to the back window and saw that there were no power tools in sight! I didn't want to think that it might be an earthquake, but I picked up baby D from her swing and headed outside anyway to see what the neighbours thought. Honestly, while it was going on (which was well under a minute but felt much longer), it was a little scary; I had no control over my house and all I wanted to do was protect my daughter. Nevertheless, we both were pretty calm (although D was none too impressed to be awoken from her slumber).

Across the street, our neighbours' 5-year-old wanted to talk about nothing but the earthquake (or "the earth on the ground was shaking" as she hypothesized before the term earthquake was even bandied about); her parents wanted to talk about anything but the quake, so as to avoid freaking out their 2-year-old, who was mostly unaware that anything of significance had happened and was vaguely pleased to see D.

In the ensuing hour or so, I got in touch with Hubby and both my sisters to let them know we were okay (one of whom was in a local mall at the time, and the other of whom was getting ready for work in New Zealand). I also thoroughly enjoyed watching the rapid-fire status updates on Facebook, letting me know that the quake reached Southern Ontario and beyond.

Anyway, apparently it was a 5.0 magnitude earthquake with the epicentre near Buckingham, Quebec. After checking the house (or at least the upstairs) for any damage, I am pleased to report that we only had a toppled picture frame in the guest room.
This is not from today, but I thought it was cute. D is wearing ear protection because Hubby was using a nail gun of sorts to affix the railing posts.

Bergère de France pull sans manches

Baby D is sleeping after a couple of hours out on the town, my lunch is almost ready, and it's the perfect time to record my latest knitting project for posterity. The story of how this tank top came to be is pretty neat. In the summer of 2008, my parents, sisters and I were driving to PEI for a cousin's wedding. Along the way, we stopped by Quebec City to camp and see the sights. We happened upon a garage sale, and this guy was selling a bag full of this beautiful orange cotton yarn (ten balls in total); it had clearly once belonged to his mom or sister or someone, because he was asking 10$ for it. I suspected that it was worth a fair bit more, but I haggled just for kicks, and got him down to 7 or 8$. Less than a dollar per ball is a great price for any yarn. Besides, my mom was so taken with the colour that she offered to buy it for me if I'd make her something with it.

When I got home, I looked up the name on the yarn label and discovered it was from France and normally costs around 3€ a ball, which works out to 3.75$. Furthermore, they had all their patterns available for free on their website! I looked up a few patterns made from the yarn I had, ran them by my mom, and downloaded the one she chose (with the enchanting name of "Pull sans manches"- sleeveless pullover). The pattern is in French, which isn't a huge deal except for the fact that it's not only the language that's different, it's also the way they explain things. I started out by translating the first section of the pattern, and promptly got stuck.

That is, until 2010, the year of no yarn purchases, rolled around. This year, I decided not to buy any new yarn and to knit entirely from what I already have, which is substantial. I made a list, and there are about 30 things I could make, each taking upwards of a month. So, I've been working through that list and item 5 is this tank top!

I cast on as we were driving to NY to pick up my in-laws on April 16th. The back was a long, dull exercise in perseverance. The front has been considerably more interesting, owing to the interest of the lace panel. Also, because it's for my mom, who is almost as tall as me, I added some length to it, after noting that several of the people on Ravelry (Facebook for knitters) who had made it found it was too short. The pattern calls for a total length of 55 cm from top to bottom, and mine is 61. I also made the ribbing longer, because I thought it looked a bit silly with only 3 cm of ribbing.
Although it looks like I'm reasonably close to being done, even when I finish knitting the two pieces, I have to soak them (I bring them everywhere with me, so they get a bit grubby by the end), pin them out to the correct measurements (which will also punch up the look of the lace on the front), sew them up, and knit edgings on the collar and arms. Plus sew in a label.

The yarn is quite fine, so it takes ages to knit up. Luckily, I haven't fallen into the black hole of knitting: this is when you knit and knit and knit some more, and find out you've only added half a centimeter. Still, it will all be worth it when it's done and my mom can look beautiful in it!

Wedding wear challenge, take 1

Here's how round one of the wedding wear challenge went:
-LBD from Jacob, circa high school
-vest from H&M, circa 2008
-pearl earrings & necklace from Diva, circa 2007

Accompanying me in the photo are my fashionista friend J and, of course, my dear hubby, whose matching vest (from Value Village, no less!) was no accident. We don't often dress alike, so it's a special day indeed when he agrees to it.

Congratulations to our newly married friends, whose day was beautiful, unique and lots of fun! And my parents deserve a huge shout-out for babysitting baby D for something like ten hours.

Stay tuned for round two, coming up in early July...

Wedding wear challenge

I have the distinct pleasure of attending four weddings this summer, and I'm looking forward to each one (shout-out to the lovely couples: Mike & Dana, Mark & Val, Chris & Liz, and Kyra & Matt). It has frequently been the case in the past that I buy a new dress for a summer wedding, but it seems silly to get anything new when I have about twenty dresses at the ready, as well as a number of skirts and tops. So, my challenge will be to remix existing wardrobe pieces to create original outfits. The first outfit is set for Mike & Dana's wedding tomorrow! I think I tried on about ten different combinations, including accessories, before I finally decided. Hubby's input was definitely valued (it helped that he wanted a distraction from his studies). The main thing I wanted to incorporate was a clutch I found at an estate sale today for 1$. (An aside: do estate sales typically involve spreading one's belongings out over the lawn? This one seemed a bit on the shanty side.) Pics to follow later... maybe even one of all my dresses if I'm feeling brave.

A few errands

My lovely and wonderful sister offered to look after baby D this afternoon so I could run some errands without her, and I had to take her up on it! I'm glad that D still fits into her portable carseat, but I had a bit of heavy lifting to do anyway. Literally about two years ago, my dad and I were cleaning out my grandparents' storage locker (at their request- we weren't thieving), and came across an old sewing machine in a carrying case. My dad said I could keep it, and it's moved houses with us, remaining unopened until this week. I've been noticing a lot of easy-looking sewing projects on various blogs, and while I prefer to hand-sew, I'd like to re-learn how to machine sew since it looks more polished. So today I took the thing to a sewing machine hospital (no joke) to find out what it needs and how much that would cost.

The guy helping me was not particularly kind or welcoming; he opened up the case, fiddled around a bit with the machine, and told me it just needed a tune-up and some oil. Which would run me about 99.99$. I thanked him for his time and left promptly. I'll have a look around to see if I can find cheaper service elsewhere. I wouldn't have minded giving him the business had he been more courteous or even vaguely interested.

I also stopped by Value Village, where they've reorganized the layout again, but this time it looks much more put-together. In the housewares section (which I used to avoid, but now make of point of visiting first), I found a couple of little ice cube trays with lids which will be perfect for freezing baby D's food! I didn't really want to repurpose our sole ice cube tray for her biz, so I was delighted to pay only 1.99$ apiece.

After my errands, I picked up D and headed home, arriving just minutes before Hubby did. We had a lovely (albeit brief) evening cooking dinner together before heading out to our evening events: Bible study with the guys for him, and watching my best friend's soccer game for me and D. Tomorrow night will be a family night, because we've been missing each other far too often this week.
Tonight's baby pic is brought to you by the number 8, which is the number of months baby D is now! And her favourite activity of all is getting up to various shenanigans by crawling.