Knitting the cold away...

I moved to Calgary, Alberta at the beginning of September and was dreading having to face a standard "Canadian" winter again. Of course, this year it decided to start snowing in October! Even though it hasn't been as cold as I thought it would be, I still like to grumble about having to face the winter weather.


All this snow and chilly air has put me in the mood to knit with warm and cozy wool. So that's exactly what I've been doing. Cue the gorgeous #01 Lace Scarf  by Tanis Gray that appeared in the magazine Vogue Knitting 2008/09 Winter issue.

Isn't it simply beautiful?

Until next time,

Beautiful Mirror

I can finally say.... MY MIRROR IS ALL DONE! I hung it back up on my wall and I am in love. My pictures don't do the colour justice and fail to show just how cute it looks hanging on my wall.

What do you think ?

Robin's Egg Blue

I love it!

It started off as this gold colour

Until next time,

Knitting life lessons

Still holding up after 3 years

SAM_1478
Originally uploaded by lizsmail_00

I have already begun to pack for our move to Calgary even though it isn't until August. As I'm hand washing all of the hand made knit wear before storing it away I stumble across this cowl. It was the very first cowl I knit. I believe it was the first time I didn't knit a hat (which by the way is still my favourite item to knit). I finished this cowl three years ago and it is still going strong. But as I take a closer look at it I notice that all my stitches are twisted. It just reminded me that although practice may not make perfect, practice does make progress. I no longer knit with twisted stitches and have since tackled bigger and more advanced projects. But it also made me think that in life we make mistakes along the way but if we persevere eventually we'll get it right. I really needed that reminder today.

Until next time,

You can find the pattern for this cowl here: Dolores Park Cowl 

Neon Yellow Manicure Fail

I'm sure you are all aware of the recent caviar manicure craze...I mean "fish egg" manicure. My deepest apologies Ciate, what was I thinking using the word "caviar". Anyway, I actually did give this manicure a try going the DIY route. Although the look is very cool and three dimensional, feeling the bumpy beads on my nails just made me want to pick them off or bite them off. Not cute. Although I know that squishing tiny beads to my nails is not for me, now I just want to start sticking everything on my nails. Well last week I was at the dollar store and stumbled upon a package of what looks like coloured sand. Of course the first thing I thought of was sticking the tiny sand on my nails.

Coloured sand to the right. Ignore all but the yellow nail polish

I picked up a package of the neon coloured sand and a pack of paint brushes because it came with one thin brush, perfect for striping. I had all these pictures in my head of how amazing it was going to turn out. I did one coat of 'Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees Suede' from OPI and then used yellow from hoof (pictured above) to draw on the designs. Before the yellow nail polish would dry I would sprinkle some of the neon yellow sand on the wet nail polish and then dust off the excess. Sadly, it took me a long time to achieve results that were mediocre at best. Take a look for yourself:

Notice how fuzzy it looks

Obviously I hadn't added enough tiny sand, so I tried again on the right hand nails...

Notice the "sandpapery" texture of my ring finger. Needless to say that this time things did not work out as planned. Is this going to stop me from doing more manicures that require embedding tiny sand on my nails, heck no! 

So not every DIY turns out, but whose looking? 

Until next time, 

Adorable Baby Set

A friend of mine is expecting a baby niece in July and she asked me to knit her up some baby gear. I found two cute pieces to knit up. I hope you like them!

Baby Booties 

Teddy Bear Hat 

And friend, you know who you are, these cuties are on their way :)

Have a great weekend!

Until next time,