Cuba

I just convinced myself that, rather than spend the next hour knitting furiously in a futile attempt to finish a sock by 11 PM EST in order to qualify for the February Solid Sock drawing, I ought to take a moment to tell y'all about our trip to Cuba. Personal growth, people. You read about it here first.


So! Cuba. If you'd told me we would be taking a family trip to Cuba 6 weeks ago, I would have thought you were completely off your rocker. I just started a new job, finances are tight, and well... Phil always had a *thing* against going to Cuba. He considered it to be... tacky.


Be that as it may, turns out all it took to change his mind was his daughter saying Pretty Please whilst batting her extra long eyelashes, and the tickets were as good as booked. And once my Super-Duper New Boss Extraordinaire ^TM gave me the time off, well... we were on our way.


It had been a while since I'd escaped the winter like that, and Oh My... was it ever lovely. A beautiful beach, warm sand between your toes, cool water on your skin. *Heaven*


Really though, there isn't much to tell. We didn't really do much, you know? Our toughest decisions were about whether we should go to the pool or the beach first. We built sand castles, collected sea shells, read books...


Oh, and I managed to fit in some knitting too :)


Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Apologies for the radio silence but...

We've been rather busy :)

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Quickies

While in Myrtle Beach last summer, I briefly found myself in fabric heaven. It was our last day, and we had a few hours to kill, so we did some shopping. My local fabric store isn't much to write home about, so I wasn't expecting much. But DUDES, this place was WAY beyond anything I've experienced at home. Bolts and bolts of fabric EVERYWHERE, all modern and pretty and organized by colour... Oh, it was glorious. I remember wanting to spend HOURS in this place, but with 2 cherubs following me around and whining about being hungry/thirsty/hot/tired/needing to pee... it was, shall we say... challenging.

To buy myself a bit of time (not to mention the good graces of the shop keepers!), I let each of the kids choose a fat quarter of fabric of their very own. Whichever one they wanted, I'd buy it for them. And we'd use it to make something for them "later".

Weeks went by. Months, even. But they didn't forget. Every once in a while, they'd pull out their fabric and ask me when I was going to make something for them. "What about my fabric, maman? When will you make something with my fabric?".

*Sigh*

I finally cracked this weekend, and made each of them a lined drawstring pouch, using Jeni's pattern (from In Color Order).



I made the Snack Size bag, which took me maybe 25 minutes per bag, including cutting time. The kids seem happy with them, even though I was a wee bit disappointed with the finished size myself (probably should have read the actual measurements in the pattern first, huh? I mean, there are 16 size options, fps). Émilie, especially, seems to be making the most of it.


Some bling, a pair of shades... what else does a modern girl on the go need?

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Ripple Effect

Apologies for the hiatus, friends. It's been a busy few weeks chez Dear, friends (understatement!!!), and I'm so tired I can barely see straight, so it's a real tribute to my love and appreciation of this here blog that I'm even posting at all...

Without further ado, I present the second official FO to finally come off the needles: a pair of Fleece Artist thrum socks, a woefully belated Christmas gift for my stepmum Margot.


Let me just say this: I absolutely *despise* knitting these f***ing things. Hate it. After the first few rounds, the "charm" of the multi-coloured thrums loses what pitiful appeal I had deluded myself into thinking they had, and I want to snip the fledgling sock into a zillion wee bits and set them on fire. Don't ask me why. I just really, really REALLY hate knitting these things. But I knit them anyway. You know... once every 2 or 3 years, when I can finally suppress the gag reflex these f***ers inspire. 'Cause that's just the kind of awesome stepdaughter I am, you know? Heh.

Suffice it to say that, once I was finally done with these never-ending time sucks of doom socks, I had a mean hankering to knit ANY SOCK WHATSOEVER AS LONG AS IT WASN'T THRUMMED. In the next few days, I cast on not one, but TWO pairs. Considering my strict-ish policy about project monogamy, that should tell you something about how far out of my comfort zone those Socks of Evil pushed me.

Sock cast on The First:


Solid Socks Mystery KAL, designed by Laura Jenkins, knit with Sweet Georgia Tough Love in the Tourmaline colourway. Colour is way, WAY off in this picture, but hey, that's life.

Sock cast on The Second:


It's Tea Time socks, from Around the World in Knitted Socks, by Stephanie Van der Linden. Knit with The Sincere Sheep Keen 100% BFL Superwash in the Milpa colourway. Really digging these at the moment.

The recent cast-ons are helping me recover with the trauma of the thrummed socks, but I don't know what I'm completely over it yet. Maybe I should cast on for a cowl...

Happy Knitting, Everyone!