I found my future knitting circle.

From last Friday...

I feel like I've had an amazing day. Last night, I realized that I wasn't working yesterday and I had choir practice at 6 in Hamilton. Thought to myself, I've wanted to go to that knitting circle at the Hamilton Central Library, why not head over early and go and I am so happy that I did.

 Isn't that a cool looking library?

I made it to the library and dreaded to 4 floor climb. I found the elevators and a lady with a pushcart made a mad dash to follow me into the elevator. I asked her if she was heading to the knitting circle, since she didn't request a floor. She introduced herself as Janice and directed me to where the circle meets.  I pulled up a seat, pulled out my knitting and went to work.

This circle is much bigger than the other 2 that I'm a part of. There were about 15 people there besides Janice and myself plus an additional 2 babies (which I will not count because they didn't knit or crochet but they sure were cute).

The leader of the group, named Marie-Ange, gave me an introduction to the group and mentioned her reasons for starting it and keeping it going through out the summer.  I was very impressed.  She also invited me to the Facebook group.  I met with another set of knitters, a mother/daughter combo, who was also named Janice and Heather.  We ended up staying an hour past the ending of the knitting circle just talking.

I love the fact that I have already found a knitting circle in the city that I want to live in, without living there yet.  I'm going to try to attend more often when  I'm off a Friday and I have practice as well.

Year of Projects: Week 45

Hi everyone :) I'm not exactly sure if you'd call my week knitting productive but last week was definitely a good week.

I cast on my next pair of "travelling" socks; you know, something easy that doesn't require much concentration that you'll only knit at times such as bus rides. I am abysmal at knitting socks that way. I just knit what I feel like knitting when I have the time to knit and this time, it's the Slide socks by Cookie A. from her sock club in 2011, I think.  I wasn't apart of it then but the pattern intrigued me.

Yarn: Sweet Georgia CashLuxe

Colourway: Blood Orange

I don't know if I like the way this is turning out and I'm contemplating ripping it all put and doing it with a different yarn. The cashmere feels fabulous but I don't know what is up with my tension around he increases and decreases used to create the diagonal pattern. I may just redo everything with my Zen Yarns in the colourway Flamenco (another lovely reddish colour) that is merino and nylon only. Yeah...just decided all that while writing this update.

The Tree of Life socks are still sitting in their project bag, with no decernable change other than perhaps a find layer of dust.

On a more personal note, I got accepted into college (yay me!) for September. I just waiting to see how be financing goes. If well, for the next 3 years, minimum, I'll be a student...fun times...

The Highs and Lows of the Day

Today has been a day of highs and lows...and it's only 1:30 in the afternoon.

I got up this morning, after an hour of hitting the snooze button on my phone, got dressed and ate a couple of frozen waffles.  I am not a fan of frozen waffles but since we don't currently own a waffle machine and I have no money to get fresh waffles, I had to make do.  I got on the bus and headed off to work.  I got to work, feeling good, watched tv in the backroom until my shift started.  I tried to punch in but the message popped onto the punch clock stating "Not scheduled".  I blink in confusion and double checked on the schedule for the week.  I came in for the shift that was for tomorrow.  Good thing I had a bus pass.  I got my vacation request sheets signed and headed home, to the dismay of my supervisor who wanted me to stay (unfortunately, it's not up to her if I do or not).

I went home, kind of upset but at least happy that I submitted the vacation request sheets.  I walked up to my house and saw a huge envelope sticking out of the mailbox with the logo for the school I had applied to.  There was also a smaller envelope from the same school.  I was already pretty sure that the smaller envelope was a rejection for a different program but I did take the advice of the school coucillor and applied for a program that could lead into what I really wanted to go to.  The big envelope contained the acceptance letter for the different program.  So hopefully in September, I'll be going to school, around the corner from my house.  And then we'll see about transitioning to what I really want to study.

Year of Projects: Week 47

I HAVE AN FO!!

These are almost my most quickly done socks. That last sentence doesn't sound grammatically correct but it took just over 2 weeks and the Newtons socks from last year took 10 days.

The pattern is from Cookie A. and it's called Kai-Mei. The yarn is from Wollmeise. It's twin in a WD colour I can't remember but it sure is pretty.

I haven't fully decided what socks I'm going to do next but I'm leaning to the Selkie socks by Janel Laidman in the MissBabs Cosmic in the colourway Inkwell from the Cookie A. sock club from last year.

Year of Projects: Week 46

I am actually very pleasantly surprised with my week this week. I just finished 1 sock of the pair I had cast on last week.

They are the Kai-Mei socks by Cookie A. I really like them even though I had to suffer through the 6.5" of 3x3 ribbing for the leg. The panel on the foot more than made up for it challenge-wise. I hope to start the next sock very soon, like later in today, before the 2nd sock syndrome has a chance to kick in.

That's it for this week.

Year of Projects: Week 45

I have apparently reached the point of my knitting life that it no longer bothers me to frog a project and start again.  Remember that free form project I had started last week? I was working on the gusset before I tried it on. Let's just say 72sts on a 1US needle where most of the pattern is stockinette is WAY too big.

So it was either keep it and have it too big after the cuff or rip it out and start again. I ended up opening up a sock knitting book, trying to figure out how to free form a pattern and coming up with the gauge. I ended up starting a pair of socks that I have wanted since I first saw them in the Sock Innovation book by Cookie A. Right now, it's a lot of ribbing...and more ribbing til 6.5". I think this will be an excellent time to catch up on tv watching.

I worked a bit on the Tree of Life socks and this time, I got the colour order right and I am loving them.

Yesterday (Saturday) was the 1st year anniversary of one of my LYS's, Handknit Yarn Studio. I did a quick setup to celebrate with this today after lunch and I took a couple of my cousins with me. I made sure to pick up a button they had made for the occasion and I added it to my knittin bag.