Where did the time go?

Honestly, it seems like I just posted a few days ago - and it was 3 weeks ago! So, here's the big update of what's going on here.

First, John and I leveled out the ground in front of the yarn shop. No more walking down a little slope and then back up to the door. Now it's all nice and level. The stepping stones have not been placed yet (waiting for the rain to stop!), but I did get the little gardens planted. I started all the hosta this spring under my plant lights, and they did really really well until I took them outside and they got sunburned. I'm pretty sure that in a month or so all traces of this damage will be gone and the plants will be busy growing and filling in the space.

The blue bench was going to be repainted but so many of my customers and friends have said how lovely the bench looks weathered, so it's staying distressed. Which saves me several hours work. My friend Lillian is making - are you ready for this? - a down filled cushion for the bench. What a luxury here in Northbrook. The fabric is a pretty blue hydrangea print...I can't wait to see it completed.

The bench coordinates very nicely with the pots of pink geraniums & white bacopa. They've only been planted a week and seem to be settling in nicely.

On Tuesday the Land O Lakes Garden Club will be planting the planter box with sun loving plants and flowers, and the two window boxes with shade flowers. Here's a shot of last years boxes. They were spectacular!

So enough about gardening, and now some knitting news. You all know how I find some new technique and then totally obsess about it until I find something new. Remember entrelac, dyeing, & gussetted toe up socks? Well, this week's favourite is side to side socks. I have made 3 complete pairs and have two test socks on the go. They are such fun to knit, and the bonus is they use a little less yarn than regular socks. John thinks these socks are downright sexy (at least as sexy as socks can get). The stitch pattern is Seafoam and they were knit in On Your Toes Bamboo. I got the inspiration for the socks from Janel Laidman's book, The Eclectic Sole.

I have to point out the lovely shopping bag behind the socks...it's a reuseable bag similar to the ones you get at the grocery & department stores, without the advertising on it. We're selling them for a dollar each, but they're free with a purchase of $50 or more. They measure 15 by 15 by 6 inches. Lovely to hold a good sized knitting project or about 20 balls of yarn.

Here's a side to side sock in progress. Just to clarify, the sock is ready to be grafted lengthwise, then stitches are picked up for the toe and heel. Easy! Does anyone want me to run a workshop on side to side socks? Let me know.

Tomorrow (May 31st) the small group on intrepid dyers are coming in to test overdyeing techniques. You know I won't remember to put on the rubber gloves so look for green or blue fingers on me next week!

Our Thursday afternoon knitters made so many chemo caps - over 40 in total, and the winner of the gift certificate is Candy Featherstone from Gananonque. Thanks to everyone who participated.

Our next charity project is called Oddball Blankets. These blankets are made from our stash yarn - part balls, sale yarns we just couldn't refuse, etc. Acrylic, wool, blends, cotton - anything goes. Want to try out a new pattern stitch? Well this is the way to practice it. We each cast on 150 stitches of worsted weight yarn onto 5 mm needles and knit until the yarn runs out. Then the knitting is passed on to the next knitter who will continue knitting with a different yarn until it runs out. It's handy if you have a spare 4.5 mm circ needle to slide your work onto to bring to the next knitter to transfer to her needles. After 5 or 6 knitters have had their way with it the blanket will be 30 - 48 " long and ready to hand into the Project Linus. Joan, Fran, Jeannette and Lynda have already exchanged their first ball knitted, and the rest of us better get knitting!

Yarn Tasting Update

before the tasting....

and after

A few weeks ago we had the yarn tasting which was so much fun! Here's what 12 knitters did to the sample yarns. The tasting on Saturday was a bit dicey - 15 minutes before it started the power went off - not just in Northbrook but in Tweed, Madoc, and as far away as Marmora. So we moved all the yarns to the shop from the lesson room and went on. Thankfully we have 6 large windows in the yarn shop that allowed enough light to come in. Just as John returned from our home with a generator, the power came back on. It was off for about two and a half hours.

The Winners!

We "tasted" twelve yarns and the two winners in the yarns were Twilley's Freedom Gorgeous & On Your Toes Bamboo (a tie!) and Stylecraft's Pure Merino. It was fun to sit and chat about the yarns after all the tasting had been completed.

Stephanie, from Ottawa, came to the tasting and told me she was organizing a trip with her friends from the Ottawa KnitNites group on Ravelry. They're coming on Saturday July 11th, and I'm giving a workshop on dyeing (what else? I love getting my hands dirty!) I thought maybe 4 or 5 would come but it looks like there will be 12 - 15 knitters from the Ottawa area coming to little ol' Northbrook. I am so delighted!

Well, I figure that's enough (or at least all I can think of right now), but I'll try to post more often. I could blame being on dialup - but that's only at home. So, I'll blame me. Take care and have a great week.