The Long Weekend

Monday is Civic Holiday here in Ontario so we the day off. I don't have anything planned but I'm looking forward to having the time off. It's been really tough getting out of bed the last few mornings. I've hit the snooze button a few times too many. Yesterday and today have been absolutely beautiful. Summer has finally arrive (I hope). The weather certainly has been strange this summer. I was talking to one of our stores in Victoria yesterday. They've been having a terrible heat wave. I think our weather has been reversed.

I finished the knitting on my sister's sweater. It did take just the two skeins to finish it and I have about 50g left over. I pinned it together at lunch yesterday and took it with me to physio last night. I think Dan is quite fascinated by the process so I showed him how to put the pieces together. I told him that finishing is very telling, it can make the difference between home made and hand made. I'll put it together this weekend. It needs two large buttons and I haven't decided if I'll buy some or try and make knitted buttons. Decisions, decisions.

I started another Alpaca hat yesterday. It is the same as the red one I posted awhile back. I went to type up the pattern and couldn't find my notes. I normally write everything in my knitting journal but there was nothing on this project which is odd. So I thought I'd better re-knit it. I am making meticulous notes this time. We were going to have it re-knit in a different colour anyway so it works out well.

Physio is going well. I'm back on the big wobble board and this week Dan has taken my hands off the supports so that I can hold onto him and wobble. It's a bit terrifying but I did it. Last night he had me at a much faster pace on the treadmill. He says my gait is much better and he wants me to go even faster in the future. He wanted to try an experiment so had me do a me hold his hands and do a little jump to see what happened when I landed. Well it hurt so I guess I'll be going for a while yet. He's such a sweetie-pie and he's an excellent physiotherapist to boot. I'm going to miss him when I don't have to go anymore.

We got another big Lang shipment in this week. Tons more sock yarn. The September Jawoll Aktion programmes arrived. I've been eyeing colour 0277 since we first got the samples back in April so I took a ball for myself. Lang is excellent in the support they provide to our reps. For each colour of sock yarn they provide a knit swatch so that store owners can actually see what the yarn will look like when knit. It's so hard to tell with some yarns what sort of pattern you'll end up with. Actually, Lang provide knit swatches of all their new yarns. As I said, an excellent company to work with.

It's time to go. I've got errands to run after work and then I'll go for a walk.

Have a good weekend and happy knitting!

Susan

Summer???

Is summer ever going to arrive? It's been so dismal this year. Today I just decided to wear a nice summery dress and pretend that it is warm outside.

On Monday I drove to Coldwater to see The Purple Sock. She has a very nice store. She also sells loose teas and hand crafted soap.

This is Matilda. Here husband made her for the store. Her arms are made of hinges with holes at the end so Lynn put some knitting in her hands. They move around so it really looks like she's knitting.

I bought some soap while I was there. I always try to help out the local economy.

I've started the back of my sister's sweater. I was working on it at physio last night. My ankle was really bothering me last weekend so I've been taking it easy. I walked on Wednesday and had the brace really tightly on my ankle. It felt pretty good but every so often it really grabs me.

We got four skids in on Tuesday from Lang. It took most of the day to unpack and put it away. Most of the big fall booking orders are being pulled and shipped now so it is getting busier.

Have a good weekend.
Happy knitting!

Susan

Pom

We have a new yarn called Pom. It is made of giant pom poms connected with a binder. You knit into the binder between the pom poms and the pom poms alternate between the back and front.
I have just wound it into a ball and am going to attempt a scarf. When I tested it I used a 20mm needle but it was too loose. The last swatch I did was on a 10mm and that looked much better. The yarn is on the ocean so we want to have something ready to be test knit as soon as it comes in.

I've called my friend Susan to see if she'd test knit a scarf, headband and gauntlet set for us. I originally designed it using our Pearl yarn (sadly discontinued) but it is the same tension as our Super Alpaca so I think it will translate well. It is a quick knit and doesn't take a whole lot of yarn.

I've been working on my sister's sweater. I knit both fronts, a sleeve and part of the second sleeve out of one ball of Ecological Wool. I'm pretty sure I'll get the whole thing out of two balls. Here's one of the sleeves.

I haven't decided if I'll knit one for myself out of the other two or if I'll bring them back and try something different. I've got some charcoal gray Super Alpaca at home. It's the same tension so maybe I'll use that. I wear a lot of gray and black in the winter so that would work well.

I had physio again last night. I took my father with me. He'd been going to Dan for his back a little while ago. This week he tried to do too much and he's pulled a muscle. He thinks he's 60 not 87. He was back up there again this morning. He's got different exercises to do and he's not supposed to lift anything heavy. Dan had me on the big wobble board. I was okay while I was holding onto the supports but then he took my hands off it and held onto them and had me rock side to side and back to front hold them. Not so great. Side to side was better than back to front. I have to work on my balance.

I don't have too much planned for this weekend. Last weekend I went to see The Proposal, Sandra Bullock's new one. I really enjoyed it. She and Ryan Reynolds were great together. I think I'll do a purge through my father's drawers and get rid of some of his older things. He's all for it which helps. He'll be glued to the British Open this weekend. Hopefully the weather will be good so that I can walk both days.

Well, I'd better go and start that scarf. Have a good weekend.

Happy Knitting!

Susan

What I Did On My Vacation

I had a lovely two weeks off. My sister and niece came up from PEI for a few days. We went to Stratford one day and saw Macbeth. It was wonderful, set in mid 20th century Africa. The reason they did that is that in Shakespeare's day the English thought the Scottish were barbaric. Some of the things that have happened in Africa in the past few decades have also seemed barbaric. It shows how relevant the play still is when you look at it from that perspective.

We made chili sauce and red currant jelly one day. We cleaned out the garage for my father. We went shopping at Markville Mall. My niece got a really cute prom dress at H & M. I bought a cute pair of sandals. They went home on July 1 and I just puttered for the last few days. It was really nice having the time off. I felt quite rested when I got back. Although I must admit that I really didn't want to come back, something I've never felt before.

I've been back at work for a week. It's been fairly quiet in the office although not in the warehouse. We got a huge shipment in on Tuesday, a full ocean container. We've had these in the past but this was the biggest one so far. Here's what the container looked like at the receiving door.

After Canada Customs inspects the contents they seal the container with a big lock. The driver of the truck has to cut this off with huge pliers to open the doors. Here he is.

When the doors were opened this is what greeted us. Each of the bales weighs 98 kilos. There were 42 bales and about 28 boxes. That's Lalenie, our shipper, pulling one of the boxes out.

We had four extra people in for the rest of the week unpacking all the yarn and putting it on the shelves. Now they're pulling orders to be shipped.

My sister wanted a brown cardigan so I took home a bag of Cascade's Ecological Wool in colour 8025, a nice, dark heathery brown. I had been at Linda's Craftique a couple of weeks ago and was looking through her patterns while she was helping a customer. I ended up buying three pattern. This is the one I'm doing for my sister .

I've done both fronts and half a sleeve and still haven't finished the first ball. I have a feeling I'll be able to do two sweaters out of one bag. It's like the ball that never ends. I'll have to find some really great buttons to finish it off. I was knitting on it while I was at physio last night. My ankle is feeling pretty good most of the time but every so often it really hurts. Dan got me a brace so when I'm doing my daily walk, I wear it. It really helps keep the ankle stable. Hopefully it will be a nice weekend so that I can continue walking.

I took a ball of our new Super Alpaca Lace home before I went on vacation. I've been playing around with it, testing out a few different stitches. I'll have more to report on that later.

I had a call from our sales rep in Halifax, Judy, yesterday. She was telling me about this local band that has become an overnight sensation on Youtube. They're called Sons of Maxwell. The story goes that they were going to Nebraska to play a gig. They changed planes in Chicago and the singer saw his guitar being thrown off the plane, literally. They broke it and would do nothing to compensate him. So, in retaliation he wrote a song, recorded a video and loaded it on Youtube. He's become an instant sensation, even featured on CNN. The video has had over 1.4 million hits so far. Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo The clip is called United Breaks Guitars. Quite a catchy tune actually.

Well, I'd better go. Have a great weekend.
Happy Knitting!
Susan