Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I did a little of this, had my free birthday lunch here, did some shopping here, and spent the evening spinning with my homies.

I took a photo of a couple of lovely items from Skip...

on this... my new iPhone 4S!!!

Back in January, I bought an iPhone 3G (which the vendor told me was new - liar, liar, pants on fire) and have had nothing but problems with it (a very long story that I won't bore you with) and finally returned it for a full refund last Saturday. On Sunday, Skip and I ventured into the city and picked up the brand new iPhone at a place I found on Kijiji. The guy who sold it to me threw in the Otter Box case, as well. It has the full Apple warranty and is locked to my cellular provider's service. I'm not sure how he can sell them for $100 less than the Apple stores but who am I to question his entrepreneurial abilities?

Unbeknownst to me, I needed to get a different SIM card for it as many of the new cell phones use a micro SIM card now. I couldn't just swap the one from my old Nokia phone (which also fit into the iPhone 3G). My cellular service provider swapped me for the new one - no charge, thank goodness - I'm sure glad they're open on Sundays. It took a bit of fiddling to get all the features/and Apps that I wanted fully operational and synched with my iTunes (which needed to be upgraded first) but now it's working perfectly. Yay!

The Apple logo shows through the back of the Otter Box case. I have learned that the logo can serve as a mini mirror, too! ... very handy for applying lipgloss or checking one's teeth for food debris. :-)

I also did a little knitting on my birthday and got more than halfway done on this sweater I'm knitting for a one year birthday party for a grand-nephew. It's Ewan, a free pattern on Ravelry using Butterfly cotton DK yarn from my stash. It is knit sideways. (the yarn is more of a light tan than the photo shows)

The pattern requires that the right and left side be knit separately ( each side knit horizontally from the cuff to the centre of the back) and then grafted down the centre of the back but because of the cable and the textured stitches below it, the grafting would surely be noticeable. And I don't like the idea of that. As suggested by another Raveler, I'm knitting from cuff to cuff. That way, there will not be a graft down the middle of the back and the only seams will be the side seams. The pattern is pretty neat as it includes little underarm gussets. I have to decide what buttons I'm going to use right away (maybe from my stash) as I need the whole thing done, blocked and ready to wrap by Friday night.

Skip and Scooter will represent our branch of the family at the birthday party but I won't be going as I'll be attending the DKC Knitter's Frolic!! Wheeeee!!! The Frolic is like Christmas morning for knitters in the greater Toronto area. On Saturday, my knitterly friend, Jennifer and I will be roaring into Toronto to gain free and early admission because we're volunteering to wind yarn for an hour.

Then on Sunday, I will return to the site for a 3 hour workshop with Franklin Habit on "Photographing Your Fibre". I'm pretty geeked up about it as I definitely need any help I can get with my photography skills and also because Franklin is such a personality amongst 'kniterati'. I hope to take lots of photos and plaster my blog with them early next week.

All in all, my birthday was a very fine day, indeed.