It's been less than a week!

The hat has gone missing! Last night he was wearing it when we left my sister's house. I remember because I pointed it out to my mom, since she had just bought him another matching scarf to replace the lost one. Then we went to my grandmother's, dropped her off with all her leftover food. We came home. At that point, I asked Andreas where his hat was, noticing that he wasn't wearing it upon entering our home. We assumed that it was in the car and went to sleep. This morning, when we were in a hurry of course, we frantically looked through the car, apartment, and any bag in our house that could have possibly interacted with Andreas in the past 24 hours. The conclusion being that the hat has disappeared. We left the house. When we returned, there was a message a from my mom that I had lost an earring somewhere and one from my sister that I had left my house keys at her house (I didn't even have time to notice that they were missing and they were already found).

What a crazy bunch of distracted cooks we are. Oh well, I have my family on the hunt for the tuque somewhere in the suburbs. I think that I should start sewing strings onto all of Andreas' things. But I'm not sure what to attach them to. Maybe his jacket? That would be an interesting invention. A one in all winter coat. I bet that a lot of Canadians would buy it. I find it so hard to invest in a good pair of gloves or a hat because I lose a few every winter.

The hat fits the jester!

I ended up meeting Andreas downtown after his class because he decided to go watch the hockey game and I needed to know that the hat fit. I even had to act like I was excited to watch hockey with him. It fits, but if it stretches a little, then I could see it annoying him. He's wearing it everyday. I need to make a little label with our phone number in it, because he loses everything. He agreed. He already lost the beautiful cashmere/merino scarf that was intended to match the tuque. Here's a picture of him wearing it.

It was Kheo's first birthday on Monday and the first time that he's ever had any sugar (from the chocolate icing). He went kinda whacky for a few minutes and then took a few of his first steps. He hasn't said "Isa" yet, but I feel that this is coming.

I'm leaving on tuesday to go work in Toronto. I'll be back the week later. I'm feeling pretty guilty for just disappearing during the major parts of Andreas' last semester of university. I haven't had time to make any frozen food or anything really. We're completely reliant on each other to make food on different nights of the week. A few weeks ago, I was working from 8:30 am to 8:30 p.m.. As I would drop off my co-workers, they say things like "I'm too tired to cook. I'll just eat crackers and go to bed." I'd show up at home and awaiting me would be feasts of lamb and lentils or roast chicken and potatoes. Always served with wine. If there's any type of compensation, I'm too busy to prepare food for Andreas because I'm slaving away in the kitchen preparing food for his film shoot in February. That's right. I'm not doing his set design or costume. I asked to do "craft", the catering of the film for 15 hungry crew members and actors. I don't know if I work very well with Andreas professionally. We're better off being "supportive" and feeding each other into comfort. Instead of screaming about the colors of the walls.

hats for elephants!

I've been knitting Andreas a tuque to match the scarf that he got for Christmas. The scarf is already lost actually, but the tuque has just been born off of my needles. He chose the pattern from the "I live on a Farm..." blog. I brought it to Mouliné when I went to buy the wool. The lady there helped me alter the pattern by measuring Andreas' head, she said that it would be too small and so we added stitches. The thing is that it's been so big, some girl at Ariadne's even thought that I was knitting a bag. I've been getting Andreas to try it on just to make sure. It seems to fit. He's being really picky about not wanting the hat to stretch as he wears it.
I just finished it. It looks pretty big, he's not here to try it on. I just wet it to see if it would shrink a little, but I think that it's getting bigger! aaahhhh. I might have to re-knit it. Or felt it a little? Okay don't panic, he'll be home in 2 hours...aaahhh,2 hours!
Alright, I'm just kiding about all that screaming. But I kinda don't feel like knitting it a second time.

Knitting Pains

I sped through my last minute Christmas knitting on a 10 hour train ride and at that time my hands were sore. The thing is, my wrists have been sore ever since. Whenever i knit for a little while, my wrists get sore! On thursday, I went to the Ariadne's Knit Night and although I had a very nice time, I had to leave because i just couldn't take the pain of knitting anymore. I had to put ice on my wrists. I found a forum on ravelry that has lots of posts about this. I bought braces to put on my wrists while I'm knitting. I haven't had a chance to test them out too often yet. Let me know if anyone has any tips about this.

I got some great books for Christmas. One of my favorites is "Mason-Dixon Knitting". I know that it came out last year and I'm far back on the bandwagon, but I love it. They use very simple cotton and linen yarns and create things for mostly to decorate your home with. Their blankets are very tempting to knit up. I don't usually like home decorating books or objects. I'm never tempted to make pillow covers or curtains. Maybe it's because I'm always creating fake decors for fictitious peoples' apartments. Anyway, they are so liberating in the way that they encourage you to change the designs and make your own version. The book is more like a recipe book for knitting. Pretty loose ingredients and cooking times... if you keep it the same the dish will be delicious. If you alter it with your tastes it might be even more exciting. It's just really steering me in the direction of building my designing confidence. I will be designing my own knitting by the end of the year... just simple things (one of those new years resolutions?).

Here are a few pictures from Christmas. This is what we ate for dinner:
We ate a lot of large meals with Andreas' parents, but this was the official Christmas meal.


We had a traditional Quebec meal, porc's feet cooked in maple syrup for many hours. Then we made mashed potatoes with lots of cheese and roasted garlic in them. Kheo was very helpful in the kitchen with Andreas.



This is what Kheo ate for dinner.

This is what Dude wanted to eat for dinner:

This is Molie finishing up her dinner:


Everyone was full and happy...as usual.

It's been a while!

I haven't written in such a long time. Between Christmas knitting/traveling from one family to another and working very, very long hours, I have had no time to myself. Until today. This is my first day off in a long time. Andreas is gone to a meeting and I woke up early with him. Now, I plan to stay in bed all morning, knit, drink coffee, eat pastries for breakfast, read my new knitting books that I got for Christmas and catch up to my favourite podcasts.Maybe I'll even take a snooze later. I really need to soak in these days off because there are too few of them these days and I'm really starting to feel the effects of it on my body. I'll try to post up some pics very soon of Christmas gifts and new knitted goals.

Ariadne Knits!

I was so happy to visit the new yarn shop in Montreal last week. For a major city, we were lacking in yarn shops for a little while. Now we have three! The owners of Ariadne are really friendly women. I went over with Bridget and took some photos. It's a very cozy place with couches and a fireplace (a great Canadian must this time of year), lots of colorful yarn, good music in the background and easy conversations. I can't wait to start going to their knit nights. I had to miss their first one this week because of longer than expected work hours. But it's every other thursday (starting Dec.13). Check out their site for more info. I heard that they even had a male knitter this week! How exotic! They're also having a christmas drive this weekend so take look at their blog for more info.

I will try to have the time to stop by the Hot Cakes Craft Bazaar (5039 St.Dominique ) this weekend to fill up on some crafty stocking stuffers. For any montrealers that are interested, it's from Dec.14(12-8 pm), 15th (11-6 pm), 16th (11-5 pm). I'm really hoping to make it.

Can't blog and knit all at once... but driving...

I feel bad that I haven't had any time to blog. I've had a very busy week. I'm trying to get all my Christmas knitting done and I just started working six days a week. I'm designing a showroom for a home decorating company and this is the period that they are in their major rush to prepare for a big open house they have in January. On top of it, I have to drive down to Ontario next thursday for 6 days to visit Andreas' family for Christmas and then rush back for the 27th to prepare a christmas dinner that night with my family. I'm supposed to go to work the next day, but who knows if I'll be able to make it. I'll probably be reading all my knitting books! That's right, I've been keeping an Amazon Wishlist for the past year and I sent it out to my sister and my boyfriend last week. All I know is that they've been asking me about knitting books recently and I feel like I can expect at least a couple of them in my lap under a pile of wrapping paper. So maybe I might be a bit too busy to go into work the next day. Those are the advantages and disadvantages of being my own boss.

I've got a few things that I'm rushing to finish before we leave. I was trying to get all of Andreas' sister's gifts done in a rush to send to Scotland in time, but she's decided to come home for Christmas instead so it does buy me a bit of time. I'm actually thinking about paying much more to take the train, instead of driving, so that I can complete all my gifts. It is a 10 hour drive and everyone knows that you can't knit and drive... Actually, I found out this week that you kinda can. I was stuck in traffic after work and I guess that when I sit around not doing anything with my hands, I automatically dig my hands into my purse and pull out my needles and yarn. Well, I started doing it while I was driving, and it worked! But I stopped once the traffic started moving faster. Is that legal? Honestly, it was more dangerous to drive and take this photograph at the same time.

Anyway, here are some updates on my Christmas knitting. Since I had knit 5 "Fuzzy Feet"slippers (that's only two pairs and 1 extra that was the wrong size), I was pretty tired of doing so.
So when I found these slippers in CRAFT magazine, I thought that it would be easier to just knit garter stitch squares, sew them together and felt them. But this is proving to take longer than lots of other complicated things that I've knit. How is this possible? The only conclusion that I could come to is that I only knit 19 stitches and the time that it takes me to turn it around is really adding up! I don't know what else it could be, but they're taking way too long to knit up. I guess that my knitting time is very limited these days. I've knit 6 out of 8 squares from the second slipper. Almost done!


I finished one handle from the " Everlasting Bagstopper". I found the pattern for the handle on the Purl Bee website. That is a beautiful site. Anyway, I knit mine a bit too long based on Andreas' advice, but when I filled it up with stuff, they really stretched out. So be careful if you knit these up, follow the pattern advice.

I still have a pair of mits to cast on and knit, a sock and a half for my grandma, the second handle on the bag and a giant felting spree of slippers! Good thing that my family is only celebrating on the 27th. It bought me some time. I'm already dreaming about what I'm gonna knit for myself after Christmas. Please feel free to leave me comments about how all your christmas knitting is going too!