Nolan and Mount Royal

Our nephew (in-law . . . how does that work when he is married to our niece? I will go with nephew cause, well, he is.) visited us in November. He got to to share with our US Thanksgiving, fish the lake in the cold (nothing biting), go for a chilly walk and see the beaver sitting on top of the beaver house, visit Mount Royal and take Thomas' afghan back to British Columbia.


This is how the cathedral looks in the spring. I didn't take this picture but thought you would enjoy seeing the entire shot.

Ummm, we didn't visit in the spring, but rather the bleakness of late fall. A little snow was falling. The photos are not in order . . .

Inside was impressive. Modern but not. The scale was massive. Second highest cathedral in the world. Second only to St. Peters.

Larry and Nolan looking over the edge at the top of the stairs.

"YOU looking at me?" Ok, fine, he didn't say that. I think his thought was, don't fall old lady.

And finally, my fav shot. Nothing special, just stairs.

Afghan is halfway

This is the afghan I found online that made me decide to try making one for the oldest child. Something for him to cover up and snuggle under while watching TV.

When I was looking around the online world for ideas for afghans, I really should have read the articles closer for the amount of time it took to make it.

There are times in my life when I sit back and ask "wwwwhhhhhyyyyyyy did I start that?!?" Yeah, this might end up being one of those times.

I suppose knitting an afghan on a loom wouldn't be such a big deal if I actually knew what I was doing, or what I was getting myself into. But, if I did know either of those things, I might not have tried this. And as big of a project as it is becoming, I do like how it is turning out.

It's about half finished. The stripes actually look better in person than in this picture. The idea is for the multi color yarn to be the main yarn and the cream to be an accent.

So far, I have learned-it takes a heck of a lot of yarn for a large afghan, afghan knitting is truly a fall/winter project because it covers you as it gets bigger, the yarn causes a light fuzz coating around where I work (not a lot but enough for me to think- what is this dusty stuff and then realize its yarn fuzz), cats really do like to play with yarn, Cesar can cut yarn with his teeth in one second flat (his new trick).

My goal is to have this finished for the oldest kid for Christmas. I am not sure I will meet that goal since it will have to be shipped.

Another Lucy Moment . . . in the knitting world

I started loom knitting a couple months ago. Making scarves. I was working on my second scarf (which I took apart) and my son said he really wanted an afghan. Every time we talked on the phone, he would ask about me knitting one for him. Hey, kid, I don't even know what I am doing with scarves. But I told him I would try.

I surfed the web. What was the best way to make an Afghan with looms? I finally decided on the method of my madness. I went to the website and clicked on buy.

The box came the other day. I have waited over a month for it to arrive. And the postman (lady) actually brought it to my door. I never know if they will bring it to my house or leave a note in my mailbox in the group mailbox a block away. I love getting packages. I should order more but the shipping is always so expensive. And customs, fees, etc. Back to the box . . . it was a nice long box. Ooooohhh, goodieeee.

This is my next little tool for knitting. Ok, fine, not so little. This is a Infinity knitting loom. You can knit up to 50 inches wide at the same time. I did some research and decided it was worth the time and $$ to get. Well, maybe not, but I wanted it. :)

This is the very beginning of #1 son's afghan. It is a multicolor cotton yarn. No stretch with the yarn, but I like the way it drapes when knitted.

This is a day and a half of knitting. Let's just say its gonna be a long project.

Once I started knitting, I thought "Hey, how about a stripe in there?" Off I went and bought some light cream yarn. I have more than enough of the multi color yarn as I had to special order it last month but for some strange reason, I wanted a few stripes. Not sure where I will put the random stripes (guess that's why it's called random). MOST people would plan this stuff before they started. Not me. Whatever happens, happens. Hopefully, it will look ok for the kid.

Let's knit or at least pretend to knit.

Recently, I took a knitting class. It was fun, interesting and a little strange. The strange part was the teacher who was sort of a earth lady. But strange in a nice, funny sort of way. I am even taking another class next month. But, I also picked up a little loom and tried that for scarves. Its fun and easy. I have to admit that I took my first 6 scarves apart and started over, but I have now finished three scarves that I like.

So, lets start knitting. You will need a loom. The Knifty Knitter is a plastic loom you can buy in the states. I use a slightly different brand here but they are basically the same. The looms come in lots of sizes and shapes. I went for the long shape instead of the round ones. Why? Well, cause it was the one in my hand at the store.

This is the loom I like best-the pegs are closer together. Oh, and this is a scarf I am doing for Matthew. He was looking at it closely and laughed and said the color looked like Caesar (our cat).

Loom set from Amazon.

This is the wider tooth loom. Good for really thick yarn. This is a Knifty Knitter Loom.

I think a good set to get would be one with several sizes. I started out with one size and went back and got several others. Yeah, it would have been cheaper to just go for the set in the first place. The one I use the most is the 10 inch loom with the smaller spacing between the pegs.

In the package you get a loom, a hook and really bad instructions. Don't even look at the instructions. Go to You Tube and look at the posts. I will post some of the You Tube instructions later that helped me.

This is the loom I like.

Oh, and pick up a crochet hook (like the orange hook in the picture above) when you get your loom. You will need it when you cast off the loom. Sounds hard but its not.

It's been a while since I was here

Hi ho folks. I am back-for how long, who knows.

Since my last post, my computer died and I got a new one. A laptop. I don't really like typing on this thing which is one reason I haven't posted but the main reason was I lost my password when the computer died. i had changed it and saved it and then forgot it. I finally guessed it. Sigh.

What has happened since my Kindle post? Not much and a lot. Marilyn visited. I showed her my kindle and it died. I was able to return it to Amazon for a replacement but I don't think it made a great impression with her. LOL But, I still love it and MainMan and kid #2 like to use it too which is funny because they both made so much fun of me when I said I wanted it. Ohhhh yeah, I have rubbed it in a bit.

Sadly, Grandpa passed away late spring. John was a cool guy and he will be missed. :( But he is in a better place and not in pain :) One day I will post more.

ManChild #1 decided to move out to Vancouver Island. He drove all the way there (3000 miles) and yes, it stressed the hell out of me. Totally. But he got there fine and I was able to settle down. He is happy. And getting to know his cousin better AND Reilley and Erik. This is a good thing.

I finally got it

I have been thinking about a Kindle for years. When the price went down last August, I did some research. Did I want a Kindle or some other device? I went around and around and then decided on the Kindle. Okies, so I started to buy it. Hmmm, its a new device. Maybe I should wait a bit until the kinks are worked out of the new ones. The new one came out in August, so I decided to buy it in October. But October came and went and I never got around to ordering one.

November, and I start to buy one. Hubby says . . . don't buy anything like that before Christmas. Ohhh, does that mean you are going to get me a Kindle for Christmas? No, not necessarily-its good to wait . . . just in case.

Fine, I waited. And no Kindle on Christmas.

I ordered it the beginning of January. Amazon said I wouldn't get it until mid February. Ah, but suddenly, I get the email saying, ooohhh cool, we are shipping it now, aren't you happy how great we are?!? (does Amazon do that on purpose? give long delivery times and then ship sooner so the customer is a super happy camper when the package comes?)

There is a problem-a lot of titles are not available in Canada. Huh? Ohhh, yeah, just a little issue.

BTW- I love love love my Kindle. It took me about a day to get used to it over books. Another day to decide I like it better than books when I read in bed. Two days and it is now my favorite book (whatever that book may be at the moment). I bought the lighted cover. When the room is totally dark, it lights up the page great (not so good in semi light tho).

Oh, and it plays audio books. I haven't tried that yet. Next purchase.

So far the biggest problem is deciding what book to read. There are lots of "classics" free to download on the kindle.

Snowy there?

a little visitor trying to stay warm while he eats

Ah, winter. You just never know what will happen. Lots of snow everywhere, except Florida. Hmm, maybe a trip to Florida isn't such a bad idea right about now. LOL

It was nice to have a little warm up for two days. But, it quickly went back to normal. Back to over a foot of snow. Those two days of above freezing seem so long ago. Almost two weeks ago. Sigh.

Yeah, we had two days and that was enough to clean off the sidewalks really well. But they are back to sort of snowy, sort of icy, sort of cleaned off. Yeah, back to snow.

Mr. Tilty still comes by but not as much. In case you were wondering, I DO walk through a snow drift that is higher than my boots to feed the birds and squirrels each day. Next year, I think I will place the feeder closer to the house.