For the past few months we've been using this blog to celebrate our accomplishments, both big and small, and we want to celebrate your accomplishments too! And because we love to send special packages in the mail, we'll be giving away a prize. Please see the end of this post for all the details.
This summer has been very full, mostly of good things, but sometimes it gets a bit hard to keep up. So this week I've tried to focus on some accomplishments that are about taking care of myself, and allowing myself time to play.
I love to travel. And it's been several years since I've been outside of Canada, so this year I was definitely getting itchy feet; I was ready to go on an adventure. Where to? My cousin has been living in Hong Kong for the past couple of years, so when she suggest we come to visit her, I jumped at the chance!
I finished a spinning project! You may remember from this postback in June that I had some singles ready for plying. Well, I got half a bobbin of those done, and then got distracted again by other projects, and then went away on vacation... I finally got back to it when I got home in mid-July, and it took me a couple of spinning sessions, but I've now got a nice plump skein of about 340 yds of sport-ish weight yarn - maybe closer to a light DK.
It seems a little crazy that it was almost a month ago now that my boyfriend and I set out for our summer vacation! We left by train to Halifax at the end of June and spent a very full ten days visiting friends and family, and exploring the province in our trusty little Prius borrowed fromCarshare Atlantic. I'm not the best travel photographer, as my tendency is to leave the camera behind in favour of just relaxing and enjoying the moment, but I did manage to remember to snap a few photos here and there!
I moved house. On July 1st. In Montreal. In the middle of a heatwave. July 1st is the traditional moving day in Quebec which means that a ridiculous number of people are all trying to move house at the same time.
So far in my 10 years in Montreal I'd managed to avoid taking part in this tradition, but not this move.
I have a box of vintage sewing thread I inherited from my grandmother that is all on beautiful wooden spools. But of course now when you buy thread it's on plastic spools.
It used to be that when you bought embroidery thread it came with a little paper sleeve to keep it tidy - now it's plastic. And I have these little plastic organizers to wind the thread onto which is convenient, but couldn't I have just used bits of recycled cardboard?
One of the things I'm most excited about getting done this week is setting up a new bee hive. We've had hives in our backyard for the past few summers, but I haven't been really involved in taking care of them too much (it's been more my boyfriend and his brother's project). Unfortunately this year none of them made it through the winter, so we decided to do a bit of a re-set, with my boyfriend and I taking on more of the responsibility for them, and moving the hive up onto the roof of our building so we'd be less likely to get stung while gardening.
This past week has been a tough one: teething baby, husband with a week-long migraine, preparing to move house in 3 weeks... The thing that's kept me going through the stressful week has been my knitting. I'm working on a new sock pattern using Pizzicato in the Palestra colourway to be released next month.
Both the festivals we've attended this spring (the Knitter's Frolic in Toronto and the PEC Fibrefest last weekend in Picton) have been great - a chance to get our yarns and patterns out in the world, and to connect with friends both new and old. But preparing for them keeps me incredibly busy, and I was missing out on getting to spend time gardening, which is one of my favourite things to do at this time of year.
So... I'm a little bit late with this week's post. I had grand plans to post last night after returning home from Fibre Fest in Picton. And of course after a long drive with two kids, all I wanted to do was eat dinner and go straight to bed. But I still want to share last week's accomplishments with you, so here they are!
Sweet Paprika Designs offers high-quality materials for knitters and crocheters, with a focus on locally-sourced and sustainable products. Co-owners (and sisters) Debbie and Elizabeth create their own hand-dyed yarns, knitting kits and patterns in their Montreal dye studio and organize knitting and dyeing events in the community.