I love how each evening, the sun wants to stay a while and play.
Soon it will be time for pumpkins and acorns and floating leaves and many, many raindrops. But not today.
Today is for enjoying these pretties.
Even the littlest ones.
I’ve got a bit of sunshine on the needles too. More on that next time.
I don’t know about you, but the longer I have yarn languishing in my stash, the less likely I am to be excited to knit with it! I recently found a pattern for a little girl’s sweater on Ravelry which I thought would be the perfect layering piece for Kiki. The pattern I’m talking about is Cinnamon from the uber talented knitwear designer, Elena Nodel.
I loved the chic-ness of it and thought about how gorgeous it would look knit it in the same yarn used by the designer. Then I looked at my yarn bins in their over-stuffed state and decided that I would resist the Ooh Shiny temptation and knit this sweater with, drumroll please… stash yarn!
I’ve had these skeins of Spud and Chloe Sweater for a few months and now they are going to be turned into a Not So Cinnamon sweater.
This yarn is a blend of organic cotton which makes it perfectly suitable for fall wearing and superwash wool which means it is pre-school friendly! Elena’s patterns are detailed and well written. You can tell that a lot of effort and thought has been put into this design. I can’t wait to get to the pockets 🙂
We’re back to regular life here at Chez Rambling Roses with it being the first day of school today 🙂 I’ve been craving for some instant gratification knitting lately and so I decided to cast of for this hat a couple nights ago. Instant gratification achieved since I finished it this morning.
Right now, it is just a blob and I’m hoping that blocking will work its usual magic so that I’ll have a nice little beret in a few days. It will be a while until I use it with the amazing weather we’re still having. For this beret, I used heathered Berroco Ultra Alpaca. The alpaca adds a lovely halo and is so soft to the touch.
It is the same pattern as this hat for which I used Sweet Georgia Worsted. The different yarns produce finished objects that are quite different from each other.
Once de blob is blocked, I’m sure it will take on a whole new look. I hope that the alpaca halo remains though because I quite like it.
First of all, I hope all of my east coast friends are safe and warm and dry. My heart goes out to all those affected by Irene’s destructive path.
I’m sneaking in a quick little post since we’re in between houseguests right now. Well, not literally in between them… you get the point! It seems like I do the whole hostess, chef, tour guide thing. Then we wave goodbye. I go change the linens, clean the house, restock the pantry and even before I’m done, we get the next set of visitors and I go through the whole thing all over again!
It’s been Cah-Ray-Zee to say the least but we did sign up for the everyone-please-visit-us-this-summer idea!! All order and structure will return shortly because September is almost here which means no more guests and this, haha!
I pulled out my knitting bag this evening thinking that I’d get back to the project I began while on vacation, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out my place in the design. I had to rip and cast-on again. But it didn’t feel horrible at all, because I’m just happy that I can be knitting again and my needles are flying!!
* If you’ve emailed me or Rav-mailed me and I haven’t written back it ain’t because I’m ignoring you, I’ve just been a “tad” busy! I will write back soon. Same goes for catching up on my blog reader 🙂
… must come to an end.
Time to say goodbye ~~
Thank you so much for visiting this space as I rambled on about our summer vacation. The ride has been amazing! Regular knitterly blogging will resume after a few days 🙂
I just can’t get that song out of my head!
My favorite version of Summertime (and my mommy’s too) is sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. I must have listened to this song over a thousand times growing up and I still never get tired of it! Just like I will never ever get tired of watching a gorgeous sunset!
The perfect day
… to go on a hike
… to spot jumpers and cheer them on, “jump, jump, jump”
… to indulge in some jumping of our own
Oops, see this sign?
Turns out we weren’t paying attention. Yes, that’s the sign in the right hand corner of this picture!! I’m glad there’s no hiking police 🙂
This is fun, posting snippets of our vacation meanderings. Here are some of my faves from today…
Be still my beating heart!
Come, sit a while…
My favorite of all the maples – the Japanese Maple. Ahh, sun dappled shade the best cure for the scorcher that was today.
And there has to be yarn (thank you kindly, KnitMap, hehe!) I’ve actually misplaced my 4.5 mm “sleeve circs” (you know, short circulars that are perfect for sleeve knitting in the round – no magic looping necessary), That was my excuse for popping into Mad About Ewe 🙂 I also bought a skein of yarn that is new to me, Riverstone Yarns in the perfect soft yellow colorway aptly called, “Sunlight”.
I think we’ve all had a bit too much sun today! Off to relax with a glass of red.
Looks like a ghost marina. No wait, today is Tuesday. These folks must be hard at work somewhere and probably wishing they were out here playing instead! Also, the fun you can have with the Photosynth app. Click here to see.
My flower power gal 😉
Thanks to KnitMap, you can find a yarn store anywhere you wander and look what I found… this cute little yarn store in downtown Courtenay! I picked out two skeins of Mirasol Qina in a lovely heathered purple. Baby Alpaca and Bamboo, so soft and squishy!
Isn’t it strange that knitters can spot handknit items a mile away? Check out this window display with its adorable string of handknit baby hats. I had to stop and take a picture! There were many more handknit baby things inside the store, but it was closed.
When we woke up this morning, the kids wanted to do some beach combing since the tide was still out. There were many tide pools to explore filled with amazing sea life. They acquired quite the collection of shells and sand dollars! I was “supervising” their adventures with camera around my neck and I must have bent down to pick up an interesting shell. Horrors… my camera did a splash-dunk in the salty ocean. Yes, it’s fried!!! 🙁 I did call the camera store and they assured me that this happens to almost every enthusiastic vacationer and is totally fixable. Sadly, I have to wait until we get back home to Vancouver. Then I remembered that my little point and shoot resides permanently in my bag! So, pictures of the rest of our vacation will still happen. Happy ending 🙂
Grown up version of sand castles, I guess!
Ms. K offered her stamp of approval at each exhibit. Although, I think she prefers making a swampy mess with her bucket and spade!
This summer we ditched the usual hotel option for an oceanside vacation rental instead. Fabulous idea!! I think we’ll have to do this every year – truly a home away from home! We went to a local farmers market to buy veggies for our dinner tonight which was delicious, by the way, and there in a corner we spied these incredible beauties. Yup, they are all FAKE!! We bought real veggies, but I thought this was funny!!
I also managed to sneak in a FOto shoot of Emelie. Coming soon, more pictures and details about this sweater that’s been done for ages and ages!
An excellent way to end the day, don’t you think!
