Happy Birthday Hughie & Canada

Every year my step-dad Hughie must share his birthday with our beloved country of Canada as his birthday falls on Canada Day long weekend. This year Troy and I had no Canada Day plans so we spent the Monday with Hughie and Mom. Well I spent the day with them shopping and Troy spent the evening and night, as poor Troy had to work on Monday (sucker!) Troy came home from work and barbecued up some delicious pork loin and we had my mom's homemade potato salad. Perfect summer time meal, if only we had some summer time weather to go with it. Guess you can't have everything.



I made Hughie the best chocolate cake I've ever baked and it was completely from scratch.

It was so simple that I don't know why any one would bother buying a cake mix really. It was called "Hersey's Perfect Chocolate Cake" and it lived up to it's name. The decorating wasn't exactly perfect but seeing it was helped along by quite a few glasses of wine it did nicely.

Hughie's birthday present was a brand new (off the needles that morning) pair of socks and two bottles of Innes & Gunn Oak-aged Beer. (Side note: if you haven't tried Innes & Gunn go directly to your local beer store and demand they order some in from Edinburgh Scotland. You will not be disappointed).

Size: Men's 10 (11" long)
Needles: 2.25 mm Addis
Method: Magic loop
Yarn: Tofutsie
Details: Toe-up, 80 sts, 3x1 rib

These socks were knit up with Tofutsie yarn which is a terrific summer sock yarn consisting of 1/2 wool, 1/4 cotton and 1/4 soy silk. There is a little bit of chitin in it (something from shells) but I don't think it does much to the consistency of the yarn really. I've made a couple pairs of socks with it and it washes up beautifully and gets softer and softer with wear.

Canada Day turned out to be a beautiful summer day and Troy and I headed to the beach in Shediac. No pictures but let's just say there was a little knitting, a little reading and a little dozing. Perfect beach day!

Secret Pal Questions catchup

I am tardy in posting the answers to the Secret Pal weekly questions.

Week #2:
As a kid, what did you look forward to most about summer vacation/break/holiday?

Summer Camp! I went to a Western week camp every summer where I had my own horse to take care of the entire week. It was the best ever! We did other things as well, like swimming, campfires and crafts, but the best part for me was having to take care of 'my' horse. Everything from riding, cleaning stalls to feeding was required and every minute of it (even swatting the bugs away) was the best time ever.


Week #3:
What would you consider the perfect amount of stash?

It doesn't exist... as long as I am a knitter and/or weaver I don't think I'll ever have the perfect amount of stash. Just when I think I have everything I need in my stash and will only knit from that because why would I need to buy any more yarn ever, I come across a project I'd really like to make but I have nothing in my stash that will work. Sometimes I wonder if subconsciously I'm searching out projects that are intended for yarn I don't have just for the excuse to go search for more yarn. If there is an illness called 'Stashitis' then I have it.

Fiber tyme

I am officially off of my spinning hiatus!

I completed spinning the blended merino I purchased from CJ Kopec creations.

This...


turned into this...


It was pink, brown and caramel but it spun up to have a purple. It's very soft and at a very rough guess I'll have about 400-500m from the 8 oz I bought.

I also finally dyed the merino/sea cell blend from last years Spinning Retreat. It is from the Belfast Mini Mills in PEI and it is prepared in almost a pencil roving.

This ....



Turned into ....


I tried something knew this time and put the dye directly onto the fiber in the pot with out mixing it with water first. I had much more control over where the dye was going to go but as I had had the opposite experience in the past with it premixed I was over cautious with the brown and ended up with way less brown then I intended. Actually less green as well because I had planned for it to be darker. I may dye it again and see what I get but I'm scared to handle the fiber again as the roving is becoming harder to draft.

I've also spun half a 4 oz bag of the cashmere/merino 50/50 blend I also bought at the spinning retreat from the mini mills. It is an amazing joy to spin and is super soft. I plan on plying it with a thin single of silk, but we'll see if I stick to that plan. I'm spinning it natural, pre dying, which is odd for me. Pictures to come, but they are kind of boring since there is no way the beige single in the picture can demonstrate how soft and wonderful it is in person.

Reconstructive surgery

No that is not a grave site, it's the view from my front door today.

We had our sewer pipes and intake pipes replaced because there were roots growing in the very old clay sewer pipes that were there before.



I must admit it was a tad bit nerve racking to see them dig up our yard like that and have the pipes disconnected from the house and then reconnected. At one point today there were piles of dirt on my TV/Craft room floor. Don't worry, I removed all the yarn to a safe haven before the jack hammering began.

All is good now and the pipes have been covered up and water turned back on.

In other news I've progressed to 2 and a half repeats of the Lotus Blossom Tank top. It's slow going cause there are so many stitches and the lace pattern requires me to keep looking at the pattern instructions. I'm determined to get this one done though. The only thing that will get in my way is that I'm making socks for my step dad's birthday which is next Sunday and I only have one sock almost finished. I'll have to focus on those next week.



I'm off to bed ... need a good sleep so I'm bright and alert for my french exam tomorrow.

Á la procaine

Moncton Highland Games

After taking my dad for breakfast for Father's Day, I spent the remainder of the day surrounded by friends, fiber and kilts.



The bag pipes were out in full force at the 2nd annual Moncton Highland Games held in Victoria Park. Heidi had a London-Wul tent set up with samples of many types of wool, hand dyed beauties and some fabulous hand woven wraps. She invited some spinners and weavers to come join her for the day (yesterday too) to demo weaving and wool preparation in the Wool tent.

We had Sherri and Dorin with their drop spindles whirling away (yes that beautiful yarn behind Sherri is hand dyed and available at the shop!)





Next we have Heidi with her caldron (aka Dye pot) filled with wool and some sock yarn being over dyed. The dye is all natural, very natural. It's an insect called cochinea used for dying shades of red and pink. I can't wait to see the yarn when it's done.




Cranking out some polworth blended with soy silk is Karen.



I actually met Karen back in the days when the only wool I knew existed was Briggs and Little (which is a great wool but there are so many others!). Karen told me with great excitement about drop spinning and how I would love it and to come out to LW and see what it was all about. My response at the time, "Why would you want to spin yarn? It will take away from your knitting time and you can buy it". Oh, how I have changed!