Finally Framed

 I ordered the frame for my Live on Little piece over a month ago. The frame arrived in a couple of weeks but the non-glare plexiglass and foam core did not. After another couple of weeks I contacted the company asking for the status of the balance of the order and/or a refund. I did hear back with an explanation that there was a manufacturing issue, that the order would be shipped as soon as it was possible and they were refunding me the shipping costs.

The order arrived two days ago. Today, I took the time to mount the piece on the foam core and get it into the frame. 

I thought I was all done and had it up on the wall when I realized the fabric was slightly skewed to one side on the bottom quarter. I had to take everything apart and re-mount it. I think it's good now.

It took me a couple of attempts to sign the piece; decisions about what colour to use and where to put it.

I love the mermaid and her mirror.

And how could you not love whales, fish, and lobsters in a sampler?

The flags at the top of the mast are my initials in nautical flags.

I charted the Canadian flat to replace the US flag. I also reversed the colours on the star as the lighter colour didn't contrast enough with the fabric. When I stitched the darker colour I stitched straight lines from the center out. I also made a mistake with the colour of the birds' wings. I like my design choice better with the darker floss.

It's all ready for me to take to show off at my stitching day tomorrow.

I Got Ahead of Myself

 I neglected to post the finished Musselburgh I knit with Crazy Zauberball yarn.

I didn't use up all the yarn after all as there was well over 400yd. There was ample length to turn up the brim.

It is very cozy. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all these hats. Which ones I'll keep, which ones I'll find worthy owners for. 

I'm halfway done my Sweet Sheep Musselburgh. Excuse the crappy photo. I took it to send to Poppy as we were trading knitting progress photos this evening. She's on the home stretch of a pullover with an Icelandic design for our trip. She plans to embellish it with a bit of embroidery.

I'll take a better photo after I knit some more.

Speaking of texting back and forth, Jen1, Poppy, and I discussed several burning issues about our upcoming trip to Iceland and Norway via text tonight - topics such as transfers to and from airports, what to wear, where to pick up our tour in Iceland, etc. We're getting very excited.

I'm also considering another Christmas market tour, this time on the Rhine River between Amsterdam and Basel. I'd like to go this year and am working on finding a roommate. Another trip I'd like to take is a guided birding tour in Costa Rica. Ideally during one of the winter months.  Arne and Carlos just got back from a knitting cruise to Antarctica and are planning one again for next year. I already have a roommate selected for that cruise. When one gets to be 'a certain age', one realizes there is going to be a limit in one's ability to travel abroad at some point. I have a sense of urgency so as long as I am healthy and ambulatory, I plan to go go go.

Back on the home front, I have selected the style and colour of my new kitchen cabinets and quartz countertop. My designer had some great ideas to maximize counter space and make cupboard storage more effective. It will be so nice to have this improvement finally done after almost 29 years in this house.

The frame for my Live on Little piece finally arrived today at long last.  I contacted the company last week to ask for the item or a refund. They said there had been a manufacturing holdup and refunded the shipping costs. One of my tasks tomorrow will be to stretch, mount, and frame it so I can take the finished item to our guild's stitch day on Saturday.

Scooter is enjoying his working holiday in Europe. So far he's been in Portugal and Spain. He'll work his way over to northern Italy then further north over the next couple of months. He seems to have the desire to go go go as well.

Another Start Before Finishing Something

Last week I mailed my latest Musselburgh hat to Andrew in Manchester, England. He got it on Saturday and seemed quite pleased with it.

Being fine merino wool, I gave him very specific washing instructions. How often does one wash a hat anyway?

Now that I’m back in the habit of knitting while I watch TV, I cast on another Musselburgh. The yarn has been in my stash at least 15 years. It's from the now defunct The Sweet Sheep Yarns in the Tidal Wave colourway.

It’s a 80/20 superwash merino/nylon sock yarn. 

I haven’t done any more on the cardinal project but did start the Primrose Cottage Autumn Quaker. I’m using a remnant of fabric I bought years ago at the now defunct Judy’s Stitching Nice in Harlingen TX. It’s 32ct Platinum Belfast linen.

It’s coming along nicely except for all the miscounting and unpicking while at stitching this morning.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Cobourg to begin picking out the style of my new kitchen cupboards. My 42 year-old one are more than ready to be replaced. I don’t have a lot of counter space so we’re looking at putting the microwave oven above the stove and to add a bit to my floor space, I’m going to get a counter-depth fridge. These improvements are long overdue. But finally they’re getting done. 

Another Musselburgh

I mailed off the Malabrigo Musselburgh on Monday and started another one on Tuesday It’s a prefect project to knit while watching TV. I grabbed a. Ball of Crazy Zauberball yarn that I purchased probably more than a decade ago. I know it was a long time ago because the price tag was $19.99 and when I checked the current retail price it’s now $29.99.

I plan to knit it extra long again, kitting a second crown near the end of the ball and graft it onto the ‘tube’.

It is not the softest yarn but won’t be overly scratchy, either. I seem to be obsessed with kitting these hats.

Last night at guild Jeanette had a stitched piece on display that wasn’t fully finished. So I whipped out my ‘All is Calm’ and put it on the Show and Share table, too. 

While I was watching Teresa Kogut’s floss tube, she mentioned the quote, ‘Do small things with great love’. I thought I’d add it on the bottom of the piece. 

I did a search on Pinterest for some alphabets and graphed the text with my upgraded version of PCStitch. I had to stitch one over one to get all the words on. I agonized over what colour to use for the text and picked white. 

I still think I’ll turn it into a little pillow. 

I had someone over today to finally discuss replacing my kitchen cupboards. I’m not doing a major renovation - just keeping the same footprint and ditching the 42 year-old cupboards.

He noted that I was a knitter from my email signature. I told him I was also an embroiderer. He said his mom was, too, and that she was in a group that got together to stitch every Monday morning. Turns out that’s MY Monday morning stitching group, too! Small world. We also bonded over having attended Western, albeit graduating 12 years apart. He lived in the same dorm I did and hung out with Faculty of Music folks - the same faculty I was in. Small world!

• Watched ‘Book Club: The Next Chapter” on Prime - lots of fun bits, it kinda lost its way par way through but i would still recommend it
• Last night I watched the documentary about the Toronto woman who lost her memory in 2022 due to a series of head traumas. “50,000 First Dates”. I’m not sure why I hadn’t ever heard of her. In the media but it was interesting. I would recommend it.
• I also watched ‘Miss Potter’ on Prime on Teresa Kogut’s recommendation. It’s about Beatrix Potter and would recommend it as well.

Waiting for the Snow to Stop

Another dump of snow started last night. This was the snow meter yesterday morning, 

last night, 

and an hour ago.

It’s still snowing at but should let up in a couple of hours.

In the meantime I’ve been finishing up the Musselburgh hat.

I grafted the crown to the ‘tube’ - 124 stitches. I keep my fingers between the two needles to keep the grafting stretched out. It’s so easy to pull too tight and create a ridge.

This is all the yarn I had left from the 100g ball.

The brim is nice and deep for extra protection over the ears.

It’s a very clever, yet simple design - a tube closed at both ends. Then the one end is shoved into the other end.

I’m pretty proud of the grafting I did.

I started this so long ago (June of last year) that I couldn’t remember it was Malabrigo sock yarn in the Abril colourway.

I’m not sure why they call it sock yarn as there’s no nylon in it for strength. The heels would wear through so quickly without something to reinforce the yarn. 

Knitting Both Ends

I’ve been working on another Musselburgh hat off and on these past few months. My hope is to use up as much of the 100g skein of yarn with very little left over. 

One way I could have done that was weigh the skein before starting then weigh it again once the increases were completed. The difference would have told me how much yarn to leave at the end to complete the decreases. Problem is, I didn’t do either. 

I could also just knit the tube until I guess how much yarn I need to complete the decreases. Then it occurred to me that I could start a second crown starting with the other end of the skein and knit until the yarn is almost used up, then graft it to the tube knit from the other end. 

The outside of the ball of yarn goes to the ‘tube’ and the inside of the ball goes to the second crown.

The result will be a nice, long tube closed at both ends. When the one end is pushed into the other the brim will be nice and deep, creating 4 layers for over the ears. The only downside I see is the striping pattern will probably be interrupted where the twe sections are grafted. I can live with that.

Today, Jeanette had us over for some stitching. The timing was great because I was just starting to miss my stitching peeps as I had missed her stitching day a week and a half ago due to a prior appointment. We cut the afternoon’s stitching short because the anticipated snowfall had started and we wanted to head for home before driving conditions got too challenging. 

When I got home, I cleared the chunks of icy snow at the bottom of my driveway that were left a couple of days ago. One real cold snap could have turned them into almost concrete-like obstacles. I’m not sure we got enough snow for the snow clearing company to come and do their magic. If they don’t come, I’ll have to deal with it myself. By then the snow will be very heavy and wet. 

While at Jeanette’s I continued to work on the cardinal piece.

Jeanette is planning to have a ‘Finishing February’. I should do something like that too. Not sure how far I’ll get with that concept, though.

- I watched the new Bridget Jones movie ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ on Amazon Prime. Surprisingly a bit of a tear-jerker but I recommend it.

Snow Day!

We had a big dump of snow overnight. I awoke this morning to the sounds of my driveway and sidewalks being cleared of snow.  I ran over to the window and got this shot. 

I cannot tell you what peace of mind it gives me to have this taken care of whether I’m home or not. 

Before going to bed last night my snow meter read about 7”. This was it this morning:

While continuing to snuggle in my cozy bed, I saw a notice on Facebook that the schools were closed in most of the greater Toronto area including Durham Region where I live. This is a BIG DEAL. Since I moved to this area in 1989, I only remember one time when the school was closed for snow and that was only after classes had started. I remember because I was stuck in my driveway and called the school to let them know I wasn’t going to make it in until much later. Only then I was told the board was shutting the schools. I then started calling colleagues who lived in Toronto (including Skip at the time) to tell them not to even try to get to work as our schools were going to be closed.

Buses will frequently get cancelled but schools remain open to receive students who get there on foot of who are dropped off by their parents who have to get to work. Teachers are expected to risk their lives to get there regardless.

I had no occasion to leave my home so decided to have a pyjama day and have fun doing whatever I wanted - basically like a usual day as a retiree. LOL.

I did some work on the Winter’s Cardinal. It’s going quite quickly. I really like the colours. I may finish this as a flatfold.

 

I’m using 34ct fabric from my stash. It was a fat quarter I had purchased at The Old Tattered Flag on a road trip with my girlies pre-COVID. It was only $10! 

I’m using two strands and am finding the coverage to be rather dense. I probably could have gotten away with one strand but I was already too far in to start over. I had already tried 40ct fabric and was having lots of trouble finding the holes.

I also knit a second Nordic hat and used the leftover yarn from the one I did earlier this week. It’s the free Nordic Hat pattern on Ravelry from Mònica Cifuentes. 

I started it with the natural-coloured yarn as I didn’t think I had enough of the grey yarn to use as the main colour. It’s was a very quick knit. I used slightly larger needles than I used on the previous hat - 4mm for the ribbing and 4.5mm for the rest.

Scooter was supposed to fly to Lisbon last night but his flight got cancelled. He was rebooked for tonight and finally took off almost two hours late. He will be travelling around Europe for almost 3 months. I am very excited for him and will live vicariously. 

I guess tomorrow I’ll get dressed and actually leave the house. 

I Knit a Hat Today!

After stitching at Alda’s this morning and lunch at Arby’s, I headed over to the new Michaels in north Whitby at Taunton and Garden. It’s in the corner of the plaza near Marks. The official opening will be this Saturday. 

I bought a couple of balls of Patons Classic Wool Worsted yarn for a Nordic hat I wanted to knit - Dark Gray Mix and Aran. I was happy that these two colours were available because I’m finding Michaels are replacing most Lion Brand and Patons yarns with their Loops & Threads yarns. The Classic Wool Worsted is one of my favourite commercial yarns. It’s 100% wool, not scratchy and lovely to work with.

With our upcoming Iceland/Norway trip, an iconic pattern seemed like a good thing to do. I used a free pattern from Drops Design, 219-14 Winter’s Night Enchantment Hat.

It’s written for DK weight yarn so I modified the pattern for worsted weight by casting on only 96 sts. This is the number of sts I usually cast on for a hat for myself with worsted weight. The chart is 6 sts wide so that works well as 96 is divisible by 6 for the chart, and by 4 for the ribbing. I used 3.75mm needles for the ribbing and 4mm needles for the rest.

I knit the ribbing almost twice as long so it would fold up for extra ear protection.

I skipped the pattern for the crown and began the decreases right away - every other round to 12 sts between stitch markers, then every round until 8 stitches remained. Then I ran the yarn through the remaining sts and secured the yarn. Because I doubled the ribbing I used a little more than half the 100g ball - 56g. If I had done the regular 4cm ribbing, I probably could have had enough to knit a second hat this size. If I reverse the colours, I could get a second hat from the remaining yarn. 

Skipping the crown chart, I also omitted the random ‘lice’ stitches. I also omitted the pom pom.

While I was at Michaels I bought the last skein I needed for my Cardinal’s Winter project (DMC3765) and a skein I needed for my needlepoint project. Thanks to my DMC thread colour chart, I was able to match the light yellow green floss I misplaced with DMC 704.

While at stitching this morning, I finished stitching most of this clandestine project.

I’m going to finish it as a little pillow. It’s on 32ct linen using 2 strands over two threads.

On the Hunt for Tamales

I visited my family in Lambton County this week. I combined the visit with breakfast with some former colleagues from a school I taught at from 1978 to 1989. The ladies meet the first Friday of the month and call the event the ‘Breakfast Club’.

Dolores will turn 92 in a couple of weeks and brought cupcakes to share with us for the festive occasion. I try to time most visits to see my family with the first Friday of the month. It’s so nice to see these ladies and get somewhat caught up on life events.

Afterwards I picked up my niece, Ana, and we headed to the greater Blenheim area to Pastime Pieces.

It is a lovely quilt shop with lots of models on display. Marlene also has a decent, up-to-date inventory of cross-stitch, embroidery, and wool felt appliqué patterns.

I purchased a skein of WDW Grits and a pack of #26 Pony tapestry needles. The needles are black and the top third is painted white. The bi-coloured needles make it a bit easier to find a dropped one as it will show up on both dark and light surfaces. It's always good to have a telescoping magnet, too.

I also bought the Robin Pickens chart, Cardinal’s Winter. I really like the colours.

The model is framed in an interesting way with the mounted piece centred on a green background.

Yesterday evening my two nieces and I enjoyed take-out Indian food for supper and spent the evening together chatting about family lore.

This morning I slept in a bit (called hurkle-durkling, apparently), then headed for home by way of Strathroy and Mexicolombian Market, a little Latin American shop. I wanted to pick up some tamales to take home. I haven’t found a supplier near my place other than a couple of phone numbers I have to call to order them. I make my own corn tortillas from scratch using tortilla flour sold at Metro but making tamales is a much more intricate process. 

These tamales come frozen in packs of 3.

I picked up 2 each of beef and pork. Fortuitously, I had a freezer bag in the car so stuffed them in there with a fleece lap blanket for additional insulation and zipped up the bag. The bonus is that Strathroy is directly on one of the regular routes home from my niece’s place.

The traffic on both the 401 and 407 was very light and the roads were dry - great driving conditions. I had a new audiobook to entertain me. 

I was glad to get home and pop the tamales into the freezer. I’ll enjoy a couple of the pork ones for supper tonight.

A nice surprise awaiting me at home was that one of my orchids finally bloomed.

It’s been in bud for a couple of weeks and I’d been anxiously waiting for it to bloom. It’s a “Piccola” species. The bloom is only about 3cm wide. 

I’ve had very good luck with my orchids as they thrive on neglect. I water this one once a week by sitting the bottom of the inner pot in a bowl of water for 15 minutes once a week - just to moisten the medium with its moss and bark. I have a full-sized one that is also growing a spike with nodules which will become buds in a few weeks. It will be the third or fourth time that one will have bloomed under my care. It only gets watered once every two weeks. Apparently they don’t like to be too wet. I know it’s healthy because it has many, healthy air roots.

And now… time for a nap.

Update... the pork tamale was delicious!