We went for a walk on Sunday morning. It started snowing just as we left the house and as we walked around the lake we could see it gathering in places and drifting around on the ice that covered all the still water (moving water was still open and sounds particularly cool when everything else is frozen). We got hot noodle soup downtown before heading home again. When we got home I cast on for a knitted blanket.


It's the Hemlock Ring blanket and so far I really like it. I'm using Patons Classic Wool; it has a nice sturdy feel to it, so I know this blanket will stick around, and it's the colour of chocolate. I knitted until I couldn't fit anymore stitches around my needle. I will have to wait until I can get a longer one to finish the blanket. In the mean time I've been working on a quilt.


You have seen this quilt top before though it was a while ago. I'm really very proud of it but had never got around to piecing the backing together. I finally did it this weekend and carefully cleared space on the living room floor to lay out the quilt sandwich. I started quilting Sunday evening - just a basic stitch-in-the-ditch so far but I might add some extra lines when I'm done.

Yarn: Louet Jems Merino Sport in Citrus Orange
Size: as written
Yardage: 1.5 skeins
Needles: 3.25 mm and 4.00 mm dpns

These are my first ever pair of knee-highs and I love how quickly they went. They were my travelling project on our recent vacation and I had to ration out my knitting time on the way home.

The pattern actually calls for a worsted weight yarn but I didn't notice that until I was sitting in the airport casting on. I think the sport weight turned out beautifully; these are socks that I will be able to wear with most of my shoes. I liked the way the fabric spiralled around as I knit. After some dithering I decided to knit the heels to keep the spiral going around the foot (actually I think one of them is a little off) instead of trying to straighten them out. If I make these again I might try doing an SSK decrease on the second sock, instead of the K2tog, to get the twist going the other direction.


The Louet Jems was a wonderful yarn to work with; I will definitely be using it again. It is soft and squashy and just feels nice running through your fingers. The colour was great too and just perfect for the season (I bought it last October in Halifax); it calls itself "Citrus" but I think it is more "pumpkin".

It's a little on the chilly side to wear these socks outside (seeing as how they are full of holes) but I think I might be able to get away with it with a pair of tights underneath.

We got home safely Sunday night. I spent Monday trying to think up a witty blog entry but failed completely and thought I'd just show you a bunch of pictures like last time. As a started to pick and choose I discovered that I had way more pictures than I could reasonably force you to load in a blog entry so I'm just going to show off my nifty gallery features and put up a bunch of pictures over there.

Here's a quick sum up of our vacation: we celebrated my grandmother's eightieth birthday; I helped her move the last of seven tonnes of bricks; we napped; I knit; we read; we went for walks; we ate good food; I got a bunch of beach pebbles for sewing weights and we finished the trip off with BlizzCon (Blizzard Games Convention) in California, probably the nerdiest thing I have ever experienced.

The picture above is a beetle we saw when were were walking back to my grandmother's house one afternoon. Isn't it cool?