The city that never sleeps

I could not resist giving you a glimpse of our recent NYC get-away. Babysitters are hard to come by, so when my mom agreed to watch the kids for 3 days, we jumped at the opportunity to plan a little excursion. New York was a logical choice for us, I never get enough of this city. There is always more to see, more to do.

This time around, we walked the high line, explored the West Village, got our first taste of Brooklyn, and enjoyed our first Broadway show. It was a relaxing, yet exhausting getaway.

New York never disappoints. 
It also does not need words.
So enjoy the photos.

TTTKAL 2015, a project accomplished

You are going to get a kick out of this one. As I mentioned previously, I decided sort of last minute to join into Shannon's TTTKAL 2015. I have a ridiculously busy schedule these days, so I only committed to a little top for my daughter. Surely I thought, I could do this!

And I am proud to say that I did. Finish in time, blocked and ends woven in. I managed to snap a few shots while my little one was napping, and I made the deadline! Ok, the extended one, but a deadline nevertheless.

I have to say that I am proud of the ever-growing collection of handknits she has. (And at the same time I feel terrible that I have not knit anything for my son in....a while.)

The discussion on the thread today turned to heirlooms, and loving grandmothers knitting and sewing away. It seems most of us have fond memories of just that. I wish I had a photo of my grandmother knitting, but alas there are none. Still, knitting will forever be linked with her, and that is so immensely special to me.

But I digress. Back to my Ruffaluffagus. Once the photos were snapped, I was ready to have her wear it for Father's day this weekend. I thought I'd just try it on, to make sure it was perfect. I had measured after all, but it's always good to double-check. I have had my experiences with measuring. 

You may have guessed it by now....it does not fit! It seems that once I added the collar everything tightened. I can fix it of course, and I will, but it's one of those moments when you let out a well-deserved swear-word.

When knitters get together

As you know, I am a mom. A mom of 2, whose son is quite the sporty type. We have soccer, swimming, hockey, power-skating lessons... it busy, very busy. And as my daughter grows, it's only going to get worse. So finding a day when my schedule is clear is no easy feat. But it worked, for myself and my knitterly friends. We all cleared a Saturday, and gathered at Lilian's place for an afternoon of ....yarn-dyeing.

Lily and I took a workshop together a few years ago, and since then we've been hooked. And sadly enough it's taken us this long to get organized and meet to do it again. This time around however we wanted to try something a little different. Instead of acid dyes we used natural, plant-based ones. 

We had tea, onion peel, pomegranate, turmeric and cabbage. These were not our snacks, but our dyes. It was fascinating to see everyone's imagination take flight and experiments turn out. 

My inspiration came from a few evenings before, when I was having snack and tried to sneak in a few paragraphs from one of my favourite books. The colour I was hoping for is  a pastel yellow-pink-orange colour, and as you can see, it turned out pretty well. I used a combination of pomegranate dye, and onion peel.

It was so much fun! I came home with my mind buzzing with ideas, and thoughts and questions... I looked up articles and plants, and I am going to try this again. For sure! As soon as I can clear my schedule again! Hopefully it will be sooner then a couple of years from now.

As a side note, red cabbage is not a good choice... I guess there is a reason it does not come up as an example when researching natural yarn dyeing. It smells...