No kidding!

I'm working on another sweater for my spring collection and thought I'd try out O-Wool Classic which I got from Ariadne Knits. The stuff is not all that exciting to knit with but what happens when you block it is pure magic!


See for yourself in the photo below: on the left is a swatch after a nice relaxing soak in a Eucalan bath for about 15 minutes. On the right, two sad little sleevies awaiting their turn in the sink ;0)


Not impessive enough? Check out what happens to the cables below. Can you guess which was soaked?

Nice, eh? I'm totally enamoured with this yarn. Plus it's organic and the 100% merino content is oh so soft. Double plus, the yardage is amazing! Can't wait to get my hands on some more. I have a feeling this one is about to become a staple around here. Here's a preview of my latest design using less than two skeins of this wonderful yarn.


Its another lap-shouldered sweater (because I think that's just the cleverest idea I've ever had!) with a quirky modern aran touch. I call it Get Ziggy. He's getting the spa treatment right now but I'm hoping to show it to you in all its (hopeful glory) next time.

But now, time for the final installment of my holiday gift idea meme: Dada's favourite things! If you are shopping for an almost 30, absolutely loveable, and self-admittedly geeky gamer, here's a list for you ;0)


Top row: The West Wing Complete Series DVD Collection ( we both loved this really smart show plus it has sentimental value for us since before we were married and living together, Stephen would drive up to my apartment to watch it with me on Wednesday nights...good times ;0), the Squirrel and Oak mittens I knit for him (they made his top 9 gifts of all time list! Oh, how I heart that man!), and lastly, the Nintendo Wii (I don't think I have to qualify that one -- it's a Nintendo people!).

Middle row: The Orange Box (you'll have to excuse me because I'm not a gamer so I don't know why it's sooo cool but apparently it is!), Old Navy performance fleece sweaters (they rock and he's always snuggled up in one which usually means I'm snuggled up with him too because I can't resist my warm and cozy man!), and finally the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy.

Bottom row: Zelda Twilight Princess game for Wii (he really enjoyed this one and I got to knit a lot while watching him play. Bonus, the music is cute ;0), Office Space (a classic for anyone who's ever worked in a cube farm like us), and lastly tunes in general but he and the Barenaked Ladies go way back!

So that's it for my family's favourite things. Hope it gave you a few ideas ;0) Wanna play holiday gift idea meme? Just write about your family's tried and tested favourite things and let me know if you do so I can get some ideas too!

Cheers!

My favourite things...

...and a sneak preview of what I've been working on for my first line of knitting patterns for wee ones set to debut this Spring over at Jujube & Lolo.


I couldn't figure out what to name this one but inspiration struck dada over lunch this weekend and it became Hickory Dickory Dot (oh that clever, clever man ;0). I wanted to come up with a design that featured lap shoulders. I've never seen a knitting pattern with lap shoulders before but seeing as they work wonderfully for baby onesies, I figured why not work them on knits too? And so I did ;0) I love the little polka dot pocket too. It's so much fun and then to top it all off, a knitted toy mouse because what baby wouldn't love to wear a sweater with built-in toy?

The pattern will be available from Jujube & Lolo on March 1st but if any of you would like to knit one of these puppies now, I am looking for 5 or 6 test knitters. Just send me an email at annypurls{at}hotmail{dot}com if you are interested and let me know what size you'd like to test. I'm planning on writing up the pattern in sizes 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months. {Thanks for your enthusiastic response! I already have all the test knitters I need for this one. Cheers!}

And now for my favourite knitting things as part of my holiday gift idea meme.

Top row: Knitting project and notion bags from Piddleloop (it's made for sock knitting but I find it to be just the right size for holding a baby project in progress. It has a clever rivet on one side through which you can feed your working yarn to keep the ball safe from baby hands - love that!), MeiMei bamboo knitting needles which you can get for a steal on ebay (I got a set of 40" circs in every size for about $30!!! They are made of bamboo and the 'wires' are clear plastic tubes which are very flexible. I've been using these exclusively for months and even got a set of DPNs to match because I love them so much), Victorinox Swiss Army card which is not made specifically for knitters but might as well be! Useful knitter on the go features include a ruler in both centimeters and inches, a nail file, scissors, a pen, and more! Keep one in your wallet and you always have some emergency notions on hand ;0)

Middle row: Clover knitting notions (I love the spring loaded measuring tape, locking stitch markers, kacha kacha counter and chibi bent tapestry needles), The Best of Vogue Knitting book which brings together 25 years of magazine articles from legends like EZ and Meg Swansen covering everything from techniques to literature, to types of sleeves and yarn info. Each article is short and sweet and makes perfect bedside reading ;0), the Chart Keeper from KnitPicks is pure genius. It's magenetic! You just place your chart on it using the magnets provided and use one of the long magnets to mark the row your on. Need to put it away quick? Just close it and put it in your knitting bag until you are ready to pick it up again and you'll never lose your place again - love!)

Bottom row: Knit Stick Sack (great way to organize all your circular needles and extra bonus: the pick one helps raise funds for breast cancer research), ipod nano (need I say more? it fits in your notions bag and provides tunes or knitting podcasts to enjoy while you knit ;0), stretch markers from Orinda5 (made with superthin elastic these will mark your place without stretching out your stitches the way metal or plastic markers can - brilliant!).

Wanna play the holiday gift idea meme? Just write about your family's favourite things and indicate the person's age. Tell me about it if you do as I am always looking for nifty gift ideas ;0)

Happy knitting!

Logan's favourite things - a holiday meme part two

As promised, today is all about my little Lolo's favourite things. But first, a HUGE thank you goes out to everyone who jumped onto the Peace Baby bandwagon and to Whip Up and the Yarn Harlot who helped me spread the word. I am totally inspired by just how much was raised to date for the tremendous works of Doctors Without Borders all over the world. This is what the tally on the Peace Baby page looks like tonight...


Isn't that incredible! I am pleased as punch and can't wait to see little peace babies pop up everywhere as nearly 300 of you got the pattern so far! For anyone who might be interested in getting it as a kit, Bella Knitting will be offering the pattern and yarn for it on their new site which will launch shortly (I'll let you know when) and will donate proceeds of the pattern and yarn sale to the cause as well so it's an even bigger charitable bang for your buck. Here's a sample I just knit for Bella out of Cascade Pima Cotton (because we love wash and wear natural fibers for baby ;0)


And now, back to the little guy who inspired the whole thing. My little Lolo is 8 months old already and for anyone who is shopping for a baby this holiday season, I thought I'd share his tried and true very favourite things as part 2 of my home grown meme. So without further ado...



Top row: Skwish rattle (this one is actually put together with bungee cord and is really fun to skwish and enjoy the bounce back action. It is also very light and easy to grasp and was the first rattle both my boys were able to handle. The little wooden balls rattle ever so softly - like a little chime. Love it!), Weebles Storybook Castle (the first toy my 2 year old and 8 month old can play together! Lolo likes to make the moat go round and round and of course put the weebles in his mouth. They're big enough that I don't have to worry. Julian's been enjoying playing with it since he got it for Christmas last year), and board books in general but Billy Bunny by Maurice Pledger is a favourite first book in our house. Every page has a tactile component and it is an oversized board book which is pretty neat...this one appears to be on sale for $1 right now, just click on the link if interested ;0).

Middle row: Rainforest Jumperoo by Fisherprice (just like the good old Jolly Jumper with bonus toys, music and a height adjustable seat. Lolo looooves this one and has been jumpin' away since he was abut 3 months old. Great play station ;0), a silicone whisk (also a favourite of his older brother. Hours of entertainment and the only drawback is that I can never find it when I need it for pancakes!), and the Busy Ball Popper (this one is noisy, but giggles are practically guaranteed. The balls fly around to the beat of the music which is just a riot for wee ones!)

Bottom row: Kaloo Doudou Bunny (a favourite snuggly since he was a wee wee one ;0), Infantino Pail Pets (these were originally Julian's and they've been loved with the same fervour by both boys. One crinkles, one rattles, one squeaks. They stack, make great hats and carry other toys. Love, love, love - actually everything by Infantino is great!), and finally a wooden Haba rattle (these are such good quality wooden rattles in the most fetching colours. We have several different ones and Lolo really loves them. I prefer wooden non-toxic teethers to those scary plastic ones with mystery liquid inside! They're a bit on the pricey side but are totally heirloom quality - I'm saving them for the grandkids! - and make great gifts).

Wanna play my holiday gift idea meme. It's simple, just put together a little list of the things you and your family loves and include their ages. If you do it, let me know so I can check out your list and get some gift ideas too ;0)

Next up, my favourite things...and there'll probably be more than 9!

Cheers!

Jujube's favourite things - a holiday meme!

Another day, another pair of mittens! I just can't stop making them. They're so fun to knit, they use up odd balls from the stash, and they warm up my peeps! Here's a pair for my Jubilee Bubilee.


They're the target wave mittens from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature. I knit the medium size at a tighter gauge of 6 sts to the inch on US 6/4.0mm needles and ended up with a 3 year old size. Perfect! The yarn is Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool in red and cream. I even made a string by making a crochet chain with two (super long) lengths of yarn. Easy peasy ;0)


And in the holiday spirit these inspire. I thought of a holiday gift idea meme. It's simple, just put together a little list of the things you and your family loves and include their ages. If you do it, let me know so I can check out your list and get some gift ideas too ;0)

Here are some of Julian's favourite things (he's two and a half years old)!


Top row: Crocodile Creek Barnyard Puzzle (I love their stuff too because they come in sturdy storage cases with handles - we have the dominoes and memory game too!), Alligator Pie book of silly poems by Dennis Lee (published in 1974, it's a classic we all enjoy ;0), Imaginarium wooden blocks (Julian plays with these hours on end every day since he got them at age 1 and a half - they're simply a must have!).

Middle row: Super Makit Toy (retro building set that comes in its own storage box - love that! Bonus: dada loves to play with these too ;0), Mobi Tykelight Buddy (a portable night light that charges magnetically so totally child friendly - he used to carry this with him over to our room at night and light his own way), Balancing Cactus (a cool educational game where you take turns adding pieces trying to balance the weight - Julian likes to make really tall cacti and make pretend ice cream cones with it too!)

Bottom row: Home depot power tools set (we got these for him on his 2nd birthday. He plays with them everyday and often takes the hammer and saw to bed with him!), Ikea Lillabo train set (another favourite and at $20 for the whole kit immeasurably more affordable than Thomas the Train set at a comparable quality - I just noticed they now have expansion packs for this set!), Learning Tower (really expensive but has made meal prep time so much more enjoyable for both of us. It's set up at the end of our counter where I prep our meals and give him important sous-chef jobs to help. It's really stable, safe and he can get in and out of it by himself. It's also height adjustable as he grows!)

Next week: Lolo's favourite things (ideas for babies 8 months and under), dada's favourite things (for the almost 30 year old geek in your life), and my favourite things too (for the almost 30 year old mama and knitter ;0)

Cheers!

Bunny hop!

I did it! I did it! I finished a project! Sure it's small and mostly mindless stockinette, but I'll take what I can get ;0)

It's the bunny tail hat from 'Itty Bitty Hats' knit from two strands of Elann Baby Cashmere in the Serengeti sand colourway. I used two balls for the 3 month size but my gauge was a little off and the hat is already too small for my growing boy. The cuff keeps rolling up his ears! So off to the gift closet it goes...

That's right! My lemondrop is already growing out of his clothes! It seems to be going so much faster the second time around and I feel like I don't have the time to take it all in. Life is just sooo much busier with two somehow...or maybe it isn't so much that there are two of them but rather that one is a busy toddler who just wants to hang out with mommy all day: play doh, colouring, snuggling, swinging in the backyard, playing in the sandbox, kicking a ball, taking walks around the block, putting puzzles together, singing songs... He's got so much on his agenda everyday and likes to hang out with mommy which is sweet and wonderful really except that it leaves few precious moments for me to hang with Lolo and just take it all in.

I've been quite blessed with another patient and sweet child and perhaps even more blessed that my boys see the wonder in each other. Julian just loves his brother and is constantly going up to him to say 'hi Lolo, how are you today?' with his little southern accent (we really don't know where he got the accent but it's really hilarious!) and kissing or petting his head. At the mall today, when Lolo got a little agitated, Julian casually reached over and held his hand. In the car, he sang a little song for Lolo to help him feel better. And Lolo? Well he just loves lookin' up to his older brother. So sweet ;0) And this week, Lolo smiled at us for the first time! A big toothless grin. Sigh. I'm completely head over heels in love with him too.

My heart is so very, very full.

Seven or eight?

And now for something completely different - a meme! I've been double tagged by Amanda and the Yarnhog for the 7 (or is it 8) things meme.

Here are the rules: Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged.

Here's goes:

1. I (heart) Lowney's Cherry Blossoms. When I was a little girl, we lived above a convenience store which was run by my dad and every once in a while, my dad would let me choose anything I wanted in the store. I would take my time and carefully consider every item but invariably selected the delectable yellow box. I still get a thrill everytime one magically appears on my nightstand (thank-you dada ;0)

2. I always order the same things at restaurants. When we were dating (back in the day when we used to actually go to restaurants!), my husband and I were famous in more than one restaurant for eating slowly (too much gabbing and laughing) and for always ordering the same things. We were regulars at a few places where the waiters didn't bother asking us what we wanted anymore and just brought it over!

3. There's no place like home ;0) No matter where I am and no matter what I am doing, I would rather be home because I love that place. It just fills me with joy.

4. I'm such a bad gardener/plant keeper that I once killed ivy! Isn't that stuff supposed to be fool proof? Well it's not annyproof! It only took me 2 weeks to over water it to death.

5. My favourite colour is green. No, orange. No, pink. No, aqua! That's why I don't have one of these these yet ;0)

6. I'm trying hard to be green! I've always been conscientious when it came to the environment but was moved to action after seeing An Inconvenient Truth. At our house, we put out one bag of trash per week (incluing diapers) and 3 or 4 times that in recycling, we have energy efficient appliances, heat with hydro-electricity, only use our dishwasher when entertaining a crowd, use green cleaning products and laundry detergent (by Shaklee - LOVE that stuff ;0), have compact fluorescent bulbs in our most frequently used fixtures, commute by train (our car only gets used on weekends and a tank of gas lasts us a month!) and consider the environmental impact of our choices. And I feel really good about all of that.

7. I don't like odd numbers and the letter "V". Never did. Don't know why. They're like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Weird, eh?

8. My favourite song to sing to my children is 'Edelwiss'

Now for the tagging bit...what about you? Did you do this one yet? Wanna do it? Okay then, TAG, you're it! Heehe ;0)

An anime hat and six weird things

It just occured to me the other night that I have nothing warm to bring lemon home in! I was going to pick up a snowsuit for him during the end of season sales but I think I might have missed my chance: they are no longer listed on the sites of our favourite shops. And since Julian was a summer baby, I don't have any outerwear in a size smaller than 9 months that he can inherit from his brother either. Talk about an oversight. It's -16 degrees celsius in Montreal today an all I have are jammies and blankets! And a hat...

It's Hello Yarn's top down bonnet which I linked to last time. No kidding, I finished the post, decided to knit lemon a hat and when searching flickr for ideas later that same night, I came across the very same one.

I knit it from Phildar Aviso yarn left over from the foxy cardi I knit for Jujube last spring. It looks really tiny so I hope it fits. But just in case, I think I'm going to cast on for another hat right away. Until I can get to the mall for a snowsuit, it's some comfort that I can at least knit him warm accessories! Here's a gratuitous shot of my lazy square knot finishing on the inside...

And now for a little fun, six weird things (I think) about me...

1. My heart skips a beat when I pop off my jujube's socks and find that they have left behind lots of soft and lofty lint between his toes. It makes me so happy to preen those toes clean ;0)

2. I don't actually like the flavour of Fritos Hoops that much but once I start eating them I can't stop. Really, I can't! It's not the flavour, it's the sound they make when I crunch them that I am addicted to. This doesn't happen with any other snacks by the way. Just Fritos Hoops.

3. I hate talking on the phone. Soooo much! Just hearing the phone ring totally ruins my mood. Plus, I suck at it anyway. It's like I can't get the phone speak cadence going and phone conversations with me always sound like your speaking with someone from overseas...you know when there's that weird pause before you get the reply? I guess I rely so much on non-verbal communication in my everyday life that when I can't read someone's expressions or body language, I don't know what they're talking about or how to respond!

4. Most of my house keeping activities happen between 4:30 and 5pm. This is leftover from being a teenager, chilling around the house alone after school and then scurrying around the house cleaning up and doing my chores and hoping my parents don't get home before I'm done.

5. I don't want to be rich. Even just thinking about what I would do if I won the lottery stops being fun and becomes a chore after just a few minutes. I guess I figure that being rich is a chore. You have to shop all the time and get the latest stuff and then you have all this stuff and you ought to use it cause you have it and then there's no where to store it and if you do find a place to store it, what if you need it you can't find it cause you have so much storage and sooner or later your head explodes. I know that you don't have to become a shop-a-holic when you get rich but I think I would and I really don't want to so instead I dream of having my mortgage paid and having enough RRSP money to enjoy the same standard of living we do now when we are retired. I want to have to work the rest out. I always feel so accomplished when I manage to stretch a buck and get my finances in order. I think I would miss that if I were rich.

6. I prefer bad singing over great singing! There's something about a raspy or nasal voice that occasionally breaks that I find much more appealing. Case in point: Bob Dylan. He is one of my favourites because I love his insight, humour and the way he just cuts through the crap in his songs...but if he sounded like Josh Groban or someone who's voice is very controlled and polished, I don't think I would ever have listened to him long enough to know that I love his writing.

Is that weird?