Going, going, gone………

This will be my last post, at least for the foreseeable future. I think the time has come for me to give up on my blog.  I have really enjoyed doing it for the past six and a half years, but I have noticed that in the last five months I have written only five blog posts. Basically one a month and each one was a bit of struggle to write.  I thought that once summer was over and fall was in full swing and life was back to a normal pace that I would pick up with the blogging again.  But not so.  It has become a chore and I am not enjoying it anymore.

My original intent when starting this blog was to keep a record of all my knitting projects, what I knit, who I gave it to, all that type of thing. It was great and I was pretty faithfully doing just that.  But then Ravelry came along and voila! there was the perfect place for me to catalogue my projects, with all of the details.  And then it became a chore to post things in both places and I started to slack off on the blog.  

So I would like to thank you for reading my blog and commenting on my projects.  It is such a boost to get positive comments on knitting from other knitters who actually know what each project involved and the work it entailed.  My name, NovaKnitter, is the one I use for Ravelry so any Ravelry folks, feel free to visit my project page or add me to your friends there!

Over and out!

I ♥ Autumn!!

We are having the most wonderful autumn weather.  Sunny, warm, no bugs, rains in the evening or a day or so and then sunny again.  Gentle breezes. I LOVE AUTUMN!!!

I have been knitting up a storm this past few weeks and actually have something to show for it.  I knit the Katrina Ballerina Lace Layering Cardigan using my Blue Heron Metallic Rayon in the colourway slate.  It is gorgeous but much too small for the intended recipient.  So small in fact, that I don’t have enough yarn in my other Blue Heron skein to do it again in a larger size.  So I am hoping that it will fit DD2 and that she likes it.  If not, the friend modeling it for me loves and then she would get it!!! I would also only put in one button and buttonhole if I were ever to do it again.

Now I have found another sweater pattern that I quite like and have purchased that, with Shan’s approval, to knit for her.  It is called I ♥ Aran and has just enough cabling in it to make it interesting, but not too much to be overwhelming.  I went to Have A Yarn in Mahone Bay Monday to get the Tanis Green Label Aran weight yarn and they only had a few skeins available. However, I did like the poppy red colour and came home and ordered it from Tanis.  Should arrive by Friday or next Monday!  Quite looking forward to knitting this one up!!

I also knit up this little slouchy hat, called Sockhead Hat, another hat for Shan.

It is really quite cute and I knit the ribbed band extra wide so you can wear it as a slouchy hat, or with the rib turned way up, as a beanie hat!

Pete wants a pair of socks to fit inside his hockey skates. Not sure what colour would be acceptable but I got a nice green/ blue tweedy striped yarn by Zauberball whilst in HAY. Also I am hoping he doesn’t want actual hockey type socks that go way up to the knees because I have cast on and started them last night.

Today is another lovely day and I have my computer guy coming this afternoon to fix the fan in my tower and to find out why my computer keeps shutting down on its own.  Then I have a suppertime meeting but no meal to be served. 

Big news for my weekend!!!  My friend and I are heading out to St. Andrews NB on Friday for KnitEast.  This is the first time something like this has been held in our area of the world and we are seriously excited!!  And we have tickets to hear the Yarn Harlot speak on Saturday night!!  I will surely post an update early next week!!

FOs! Yay!

Now that the Warren sweater is finished and nicely hung away in my closet, I am moving on to other projects. (The jacket BTW, was very well received on its recent outings by both knitters and non knitters! And I totally love it, so that makes the whole summer of knitting worthwhile!)

Finished object #1:Daphne Socks

This pattern and yarn came from the Cookies A sock club.  I quite liked the pattern, not so much the yarn. The yarn was A Verb for Keeping Warm Metamorphosis.

Firstly, it was poorly skeined with several breaks so it took me forever to get it all balled up properly.  Secondly, it was a sport weight which isn’t my favourite for knitting socks.  (Not the yarn’s fault, just my preference.) However they are finished and on their way to Ottawa as I type!

Finished object #2:

Next up the BSJ that I finished and have gifted to my chiropractor who is due in early November.  She loved it!

Finished Object #3:  Shirl’s Mittlets

I know I said no more yarn, but this was new at Have A Yarn and they had a dear little pattern to knit these delightful little hand warmers.  The yarn is Berocco Flicker and the pattern knit up in a couple of evenings!

Finished Object #4: Triana Scarf for Margie

This was done in an evening for my friend Margie who is leaving to go home to England today.  I was unable to get the yarn that she originally wanted, but she seemed pleased with this!

No more finished projects, but this is my latest WIP or work in progress:  The sweater is called Katrina Ballerina Lace Layering Cardigan and is being knit with my Blue Heron Metallic Rayon and I am doing a pattern I found on Ravelry.  Another I LOVE RAV comment coming up. 

I had purchased this yarn in Tuscon AZ in April with nothing particular in mind. I just loved the yarn and the colour, which is slate.  So I search for all the sweater/ cardigan projects knit with this yarn and voila!  This pattern came up and only uses one skein of the yarn. (The yarn is pricy so I only bought one skein!)

I am almost at the divide for the armholes, starting at the neck and working down.  Once all the increasing is done and the sleeves are done, then it should be smooth sailing. So far I am loving the look and feel of this.  It drapes so beautifully!  Pictures don’t do it justice but here you are:

The closeup shows the little flickers of gold that are in the yarn.  I am really looking forward to seeing this one finished.  Now if only I can stop admiring and touching it after I finish each row!

That’s it for me. Now if the rain would stop in New York and they could play the US Open Tennis, I would get way more knitting done!!  Go Roger!

Dear Blog Reader

It has been more than a month since my last blog post.  As I type this, I am having a flashback to the days of weekly confession with the priest at our church. I can remember as a child working very hard to come up with sins for this solemn sacrament.  What I mean is, I was making up sins to list at confession every week.  Every week I was sinning almost every time I went to confession. I mean seriously, how many sins can a 7 or 8 year old girl have?!  But I digress……….

Getting back to the topic at hand.  Because it has been so long, I was thinking that maybe it is time to give this blog a rest.  Obviously I had nothing worthy to post or I would have done so earlier.  We did have the girls and their families here for 2 weeks which were very busy and filled with grandkids and lots of fun, but I don’t even have any pictures of them to post.  Most of the pics I took were with my iPhone, and as anyone can tell you, they are not the best pictures in the world.  I did knit a couple of dishcloths and another one of the frilly scarves, but again, not really worthy of a blog post.  And as for the weather, don’t even go there.  This week in August is the first time all spring and summer we have had more than 2 days of sun in a row!!!  Another weather rant avoided.

And then I realized what the problem was.  Why I seemed to be so apathetic about the blog!  I have been knitting on the Warren sweater since the 25 of June.  It is not a challenging knit.  It consists of four long (58 inches for one piece) basically straight strips that get sewn together and make a sweater.  It is totally knit in seed stitch.  Which is knit one purl one forever.  VERY BORING!  I mean VERRRRRRRRY BORRRRRING!  DEADLY BORROWING.  So I did lot of other things rather than knit.  But now it is finished.  It is all sewn together (thanks to my friend Donna W!)   And here is the proof:

It fits and is exactly what I wanted.  There are more pictures on my Ravelry page linked above.

And just to prove to myself and everyone else that my knitting mojo is back, voila, two new projects!!

The first is another Baby Surprise Jacket for my Chiropractor, Dr F:

Not quite half done yet, but she is not due till late October so I good on that one.

The next are a pair of socks from the Cookie A Sock Club in a lovely shade of pink.  I started them last night and hope to have them finished by the end of the month for my KALs.

I’M BAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKKKK!

Overdue!

Way overdue for a blog and I have absolutely no good reason other than I have been busy and the weather has been gorgeous.  We haven’t had the high temperatures and humidity that they are getting in the US and Canada, but I am sure it will make its way here in due time!  We actually had a severe thunderstorm warning for last night with high wind gusts that they warned could create tornados.  So I popped onto my iPad and my trusty weather radar site and watched the whole thing move across Nova Scotia just north of us! Yay!!  Not even a drop of rain!  Which I must say we do need now.

And speaking of overdue, my niece lives in Ottawa, the heart of hot humid weather and is now 41 weeks pregnant and her doctor says no induction until she is 42 weeks!  Go Amy!!!  I remember planning my pregnancies so I was in the early stages during the summer months.  Both of mine were February babies!  I really mind the heat and humidity!  Pregnant or not.  Anything over 25 C and I am sitting in front of my fan, whinging and…………..

Also overdue, is getting rid of the squirrel who has taken up residence in our back porch.  We think we know how he is getting in and John is going to try to block it off today!  We have a live trap in the porch but nothing seems to entice him to go in it!  That is the entrance we use to go and out of the house and having to keep that door shut is a pain in the ass!  Plus it is a serious nuisance with the dogs.  They are sniffing around and digging and generally going bonkers every time we go in or out!  So I say Begone damn squirrel!!

Next up on my overdue list is the socks I should be knitting for July.  Not going to happen this month.  I am working on my sweater/ coverup and as it is a summer garment, I would like to finish it to wear this summer!!  I am almost finished the collar piece and then can start the 2 back pieces.  I plan to knit them together as the yarn and seed stitch together make it virtually impossible to count rows and that way I should have both exactly the same.  So I figure another couple of weeks and that should be done. I am so looking forward to putting it together and wearing it!!  Still no pictures as there really isn’t anything to see.  Just long strips of taupe seed stitch.

I am not sure if this qualifies as overdue or not, but……..We were supposed to be going to the city today to stay a friend’s house tonight, but we got a call this morning that she is under the weather so we are not going in till tomorrow!  We had already made arrangements to stay in a hotel and go out to dinner with John’s brother and his wife Saturday evening, so we will continue on with that plan tomorrow.  In the meantime, we were both so tired from poker night at our house last night ( I had to prepare a meal for 10 men ) that we were not too disappointed that we couldn’t go today! 

Not very often we see this at our house, so I thought it was worthy of posting:

Gunni and Maggie sound asleep on the loveseat!  Gun is usually behind my chair and this is Maggie’s chair! So sharing it is a big deal!!

Both of our girls and their families will arrive a week from today for their summer visit to Nova Scotia.  Five grandkids ages 7 thru 3 so we are looking for good weather and lots of photo ops!!  We are seriously excited to see them, especially Shan’s family as I haven’t seem them since late January and they grow and change so fast! We saw Lauren and family a few weeks ago on our way home from Freeport Me and since then Reese has had a birthday and is now 5!!  Before too long they are going to be all grown up…………….. time goes by so fast.

So this is my long overdue post. Hopefully I will have actual knitting to show next time!