…and does other crafty things too.
It’s Canada Day!
I’ve got me Canadian beer…
…and some butter tarts (from the farm where we went strawberry picking; I like mine with either pecans or raisins)…
Everything I need to celebrate Canada’s 141st birthday! I love this country.
Friday I went strawberry picking with Dr. Steph and Denny and their kids, and it was so much fun! We went to Reesor Farm, not far at all, and pick your own sure is pretty cheap! We picked for about an hour, and I came away with 5kg (11 lbs.) for my very own. (Denny and her son had about the same as me, Dr. Steph and her two kids picked 9 kg! Whoa.)
Yum. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my new camera?
With my family away on vacation and me on my own, there’s just no way I could eat them all myself. I wasn’t planning to, anyway. So once I got home, I got busy right away putting up the fruit.
I washed, hulled, and froze 2 baking sheets’ full (then put them in freezer bags the next day; it’s so they don’t freeze in a big clump):
I made “fridge jam” (as opposed to freezer jam, because I just stuck it in the fridge) - just fruit, sugar, and lemon juice, macerated for awhile then cooked down in a pot. An intermediate step on the road to jam tarts!
Then the next day, I made strawberry ice cream! In my old-school hand crank machine. I used this recipe, which uses eggs but is uncooked. It’s yummy! I don’t think I have a photo of a bowl of it, but I’ll try to remember later when I’m eating it! (We’ll see how that goes!)
And yes, there has indeed been some knitting around here parts. I had a bit of the knitting ennui there for awhile, but I think I’m back on track! Finishing up some old projects, starting some new ones. An older one that’s almost done, the cashmere sweater:
Just in time for the sweltering weather, eh? Well, that’s kind of how the knitting goes. I am planning on writing up my notes on how I converted the Unwrapped pattern to a cardigan and the other details - I don’t feel comfortable writing up the whole pattern since I used Jody’s yoke, but I’ll write up a little bit on how to make your own. The sweater just needs some type of closure, and a good blocking. Maybe clasps, maybe not.
Oh, and the handwoven scarves in my Etsy shop are now on sale - each is just $85. I’ve got more in the works, but just need to clear some stuff outta the studio!
Well, shit. There’s another problem with the B-Side pattern, concerning the placement of the cable on the left front (obviously important, no?). It works out fine numbers-wise, but in some of the sizes the underarm decreases eat into the side of the cable pattern, which was not my intention.
So I’ve re-jiggered the numbers for cable placement as follows:
“…work 2×2 Ribbing over 13 [13, 17, 17, 17]{21, 21, 25, 29, 29} stitches, place marker, work Row 2 of Ensign’s Braid Cable Chart over following 18 stitches (increasing to 24 stitches), place marker, work remaining 18 [22, 18, 22, 26]{26, 26, 30, 30, 38} stitches in 2×2 Ribbing.”
(If you have the pattern that should make sense.) Please note if you’ve already been knitting awawy, that the previously published numbers WILL work for all sizes (resulting in the correct number of stitches) but you may need to work the underarm decreases right at the edge (not k2 at the edge) and that the shaping may cut into the cable section.
So re-sending out it is. Unfortunately since it’s a big file (2MB) it takes a few minutes to send to each person - so it’s going to take a few hours! I would consider writing up and sending out an errata sheet only, or just a copy of the page where these numbers are changed, but then I know that people would file it separately and maybe forget to print that extra page when they go to work the pattern!
It may be several hours before the updated file reaches you - if you haven’t received the file by tomorrow, please check your junk mail filters and let me know. The file has been updated on Ravelry, but unfortunately they haven’t gotten to the feature where you can download an updated file yet!
I’m so sorry!
It takes the pretty pictures.
(Okay, I’ll give myself a leeetle credit. But man, that camera and lens really give me what I want!)
Coming soon….
I got me my new toy!
I decided to go with the Nikon d40 - it’s nice and small, perfect for my teeny hands. I got the kit lens, an 18-55mm, and also bought this lens off my friend Andrea - it’s the 50mm f/1.8. I love it! Such pretty pictures!
I’m still practicing, since the 50mm isn’t an AF-S lens, it’s only manual focus on this camera (one of the downsides of this model). But I still got some great shots at knit night the other night! Mostly of the kids, really, since they’re such adorable models.
Check out Keri’s super cool bling sweater! See the beads?
Finally, a shot of Liam, hamming it up for the camera:
All these photos are unretouched (sorry Michelle!).
I love this camera!
And check out my friend rachel m.’s Etsy shop, will ya?
She’d love to sell you a set of pretty pretty stitch markers or earrings! (And I love to support my friends.)
On a completely different note, I’ve made up my mind and I’m buying a new camera today! Wheee!
Ooops, I almost forgot to come back and post about it! Usually when I upload photos to Flickr I blog them right away - this time I uploaded photos then ran out of time to blog, time passed…and now here I am.
This dress is AWESOME. It was the first time I made it, and it still only took an hour! Most of that time was cutting and figuring out how things go together.
Just the Facts:
Pattern: Infinity Dress
Fabric: unknown mixed fibres (probably something like cotton/poly/lycra), stretch, $2.99/m from Fabricland, 3.5 m
After reading the entire thread on Craftster about this dress (warning: it’s over 120 pages long!) and seeing all the fantastic versions that people have made, I took the plunge and headed out to my local Fabricland. I found this fabric as a discounted end for just $2.99/m, so it was a great steal. I’ll admit I wasn’t totally sold on the print when I bought it (but hey, it was cheap) but it’s really grown on me and now I love it!
This was my first time sewing with stretch, but it was surprisingly easy - I used my normal machine and zigzag stitch and was just careful not to distort the fabric while sewing. This fabric wasn’t super stretchy or slippery, so everything went quite smoothly. And no hemming, because knit fabric doesn’t fray!
The dress is super simple and is just composed of a skirt, two long straps (each of which is wide enough to cover a boob) and a waistband to finish the back of the skirt. You can make the dress with just one seam if you have enough fabric - I made a circle skirt out of two half-circles, so my dress has two extra seams in it. But this is seriously the easiest, best-fitting, and most flattering dress I’ve ever sewn. Okay, so I haven’t made many dresses, but that’s mostly because when I do and they don’t fit, I get discouraged!
To wear the dress you just pull the skirt on up, however high you want, and use the straps to wrap around you any way you want! For many, many more photos check out that Craftster thread - you can click on “images only” to see just the posts with images (more than ten pages’ worth!). This is definitely my favourite way to wear it, I think, because it’s got some sleeve going on and full coverage in the back.
It’s super comfy too! Ask Dr. Steph, we swapped clothes at knit night this week because she wanted to try it on 
The straps can be a little fiddly, but it’s really fun to try various ways of putting it on! I’m sure at some point I’ll try actually wearing it out with a more…shall we say risque look.
I love this dress so much, I’m already planning on making more. Starting with one in black…
P.S. Sadly I did not take any photos during WWKIP Day/Stephanie’s Birthday party/Franklin at lettuce knit. But Amy’s got some great ones!
I’ve added a few more scarves to my Etsy shop!
I’ll be back shortly with tales of…the greatest dress I have ever sewn. (How’s that for suspense?)
It looks like what I thought would happen when I uploaded the correct B-Side pattern to Ravlery, didn’t! So I’m emailing everyone who purchased the pattern through Ravelry the newest version. I’ll also add a note to the pattern page to make sure everyone knows that the pattern was updated.
Sorry for all the confusion! Everyone should receive an email to their Paypal addresses with the updated pattern; if you don’t receive it within 24 hours please contact me.
Still not much knitting going on around here, I’m afraid! I’ve been weaving up a storm for the Etsy shop, including this scarf out of Dream in Color Smooshy in “Gothic Rose” with a teeny stripe of Fleece Artist Silken in the warp.
Hopefully I’ll have a few more scarves up by the end of the week - I’m currently working on one in Sea Silk. Yum!
Here ends the fibre talk, now it’s onto the gardening - I spent a good amount of time this weekend working on my garden at home. No allotment garden this year, I’m just making do with space in my (rather large, really) yard at home. Saturday I dug out a LOT of overgrown raspberry bush to make room for my squash plants.
Right up to the bricks was raspberry bush; I took out way more on the other side! I know I’ll have to keep on top of the raspberries invading back into the space, but I tried my best to dig up as many roots as I could (those suckers are crazy pervasive). The plant on the left is a slicing cucumber plant; I’ve never grown cucumbers before! I’m going to (hopefully) get it to grow up and around the deck stairs bannister and railing, just to the left of the photo. The other mounds there are different types of summer squash - “Black Beauty” (normal green), “Flying Saucer” (a scallop-type squash) and “Cocozelle” (striped green). I’ve also planted “Eight Ball” (green and round) and “Sunburst” (another scallop).
The Sunburst I planted in a container, and the seedlings just popped up in the hot weather!
And because it’s getting late and I’m trying to get to bed earlier these days (yeah, right), some concluding photos of my container deck garden. I’ve planted two varieties of bush beans, lots of basil, some tomatoes (in old recycling bins! yay repurposing), spinach and parsley. The rest of the tomatoes will go in the ground, along with the aforementioned squashes and some other stuff already planted (peas, coriander, green onions). More info if you click on through to my Flickr!
I’m getting excited about this year’s garden - lots more varieties of tomatoes, and lots of squash - I really don’t think I can ever get enough zucchini (also my family is five people, so we can eat a lot of it).
Now if it would stop raining for long enough so that I can get the rest of the tomatoes in the ground!
