Pumpkin Sunrise

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments    in the comment section with a link to your blog. How was your weekend? My weekend started great!  Our son came home for a weekend visit and I promptly quickly whipped up a pumpkin pie and chocolate chip cookies.  We had a nice Friday relaxing and talking.  On Saturday after a family walk, we headed out for a lunch at a favorite bagel shop.  Once home we chilled out reading, occasionally talking and being together. Today was mostly kind of crappy, I had never ending computer problems from a Windows update (I'm shaking my fist and growling at Microsoft!).  So after whining and complaining, my husband fixed the usb ports that were not working while I went to my knitting group. I now have residual anger.  You know the kind where you are simmering and trying to let it go....

The days are creeping closer and closer to the time change, we have been eking out as many walks as possible after dinner knowing that they are numbered.  Yesterday was rainy, damp and cold.  I cannot remember a drizzly all day event for quite a while and I think our area needed that kind of rain.  My house was dark and cozy while I sunk into furiously knitting on my current projects. I have two more hats to make and two sets of mitts.  That is the least amount of holiday knitting, there are more people on my list and I need to come up with some quick knits.  If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I knit lots and lots of projects.  I have a confession to make.  During the spring and summer I knit and finish each project then promptly put them in a knitting box and forget about them. When the weather turns cooler and I approach the holiday gift giving weeks, I dig through that box and decide what I will give as gifts to those ...

I started a new knitting project over the weekend when I remembered that I wanted to knit another sweater for the dog groomer's baby.  I love to knit for babies, the projects are speedy!  I love this pattern so far but I am not thrilled with knitting with Lion Brand Wool Ease.  The acrylic content is unforgiving in my hands.  However, I wanted this project to be machine wash and dry AND from my stash.  Hence the choice. Shamefully, I am not finished with my previous book, The Daughter even though I had high hopes of increasing my reading every single day.  However - today is the day.  I'm less than 10 pages away and I have no excuses. Next up is this book in the photo, which I have to say, I love the cover art.  A pile of books?  Yes please. What are you knitting and reading this week? Joining Ginny and Frontier Dreams

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments    in the comment section with a link to your blog. Since last weekend was a traveling out of town weekend, these three days have been a "stay at home" do nothing kind of vacation.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know this is my kind of heaven. Friday night was dinner out with friends and a brisk walk around the local town.  The temperature dropped so if was chilly (a good kind of chilly!).  We received good news earlier in the day, so my husband and I were in celebration mode.  We even shared a piece of chocolate cake. Yesterday was the beginning of do nothing.  I rummaged through my deep stash of yarns.  Deep stash is the yarn my mother owned.  I was looking for a washable yarn for another baby sweater.  I found it but also strolled down ...

When I'm outside focused on the changes I see daily in my little world, I feel a sense of peace that is missing in the Spring and Summer seasons.  I love Fall.  I love the massive color changes as the trees turn and drop their leaves.  I love the cool breezes and the tree frogs that become quieter each day.  I capture some nice photos with the light shifting and angling against the woods and on the grass.   After a brief warm up we are facing some cooler days.  I'm ready!  Are you? This week I managed to make up for lost time in my chores from being out of town.  I'm caught up with laundry and I managed to cook dinner every single day to erase the eating out every single day while in Canada.  Returning home and being home is what I love best.  I am a wannabe traveler and I can fake it but deep down inside, I'm craving my home, my simple pleasures. I've been reflecting on how no matter what there is something to fret ove...

Good morning! I have made some steady progress on the fair isle hat , and I am loving the pattern as it slowly emerges row by row. It's also nice to not be making mistakes.  I've hit my colorwork groove! Oh and I posted yesterday about my yellow shawl. I continue to read my book from last week, The Daughter and I'm enjoying it overall.  The plot at times is quite far fetched but I'm going with it.  The writing is good and solid, the mystery over her daughter's disappearance affects many people and reading the family dynamics is fascinating. I picked up this book, The Power of Habit  after hearing it on some podcasts.  Since I'm a fond lover of positive habit creating and tracking progress, I thought this would be an interesting read.  Lots of the writing reminds me of some of my university psych classes way back when.  Good stuff! What are you knitting and reading this week? Joining Ginny and Frontier Dreams

Last week, I had the photo shoot for my Dandelion Daze Shawl .  I even used a tripod this time - getting all professional in my photo skills.  I cannot wait to wear this when the weather gets chilly!! The pattern  called for fingering weight wool but I decided to use lace weight.  I find wearing lots of fingering weight (over 500 yards) around my neck to be "heavy". Lace weight wool solves that problem. This shawl is light and airy and quite warm! As always, blocking wires and pinning out the shawl makes all those yarn overs stand out. Ravelry notes are here

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments    in the comment section with a link to your blog. Victoria Park, London Ontario My husband and I went to London, Ontario to visit his parents as well as his brother and sister-in-law.  I am exhausted from the long car ride up and back.  However, we has some serious Hamilton musical listening time.  If I could hone my rapping skills, I'd be singing to a heck of a lot more of the songs.  I'm practicing.  We played a few songs for my in-laws while driving here and there for dinners out and I think my mother-in-law loved it, she was toe tapping along. hey, what? telephones!  Look at how CLEAN they all look because they are rarely used!  We ate out (a lot!) and did very little walking.  So you know that I'll be writing up a "recovery diet from over indulging". It's goo...

I am from a creative family.  My mother sewed our clothes when we were little and while I was unappreciative at the time because of the sensitivity of how rough the fabric was against my skin (and I cried buckets of tears until I adjusted to the scratchiness) I now know that her crafting skills gave me my creative skills.  My mother could: sew, knit, crochet, quilt and do various needle crafts.  She learned her skills through books - she would have loved the internet and the immediacy of information. My father is also creative.  He does woodworking and dabbles in photography.  He catches with his camera, birds that visit his pond on his daily walks.  Whenever one of us buys a new camera, there is lots to talk about. We eagerly look at photos and discuss what was happening when the moment was captured. My sister has amazing quilting skills and sewing skills that I admire.  She loves the process of making the same item repeatedly and sells her ...

Good morning!  I have been busy with the fair isle hat and I finally (!) stopped making mistakes.  Well I think I've stopped making mistakes.  Phew.  I must say that sometimes I am amazed at what will get me to rethink my skills.  But I'm happy to report my faulty start was all due to my attention to detail and reading my color selections correctly.  I'm thoroughly enjoying the fair isle knitting! I'm making steady progress on my cowl.  I don't want the knitting to end!  However I am getting close to finishing and will probably cast off over the weekend if not sooner.  Easy knitting is happy knitting and best of all, I don't have to think much on that project. I am half way through The Daughter  and like it overall.  It's a bit suspenseful and a lot of questioning how well we know our family members.  I'm interested in relationship dynamics so I'm glad I picked this book off of a display table in a bookstore. What are...

I finished this scarf turned into a cowl last week and already gifted it to my son when I met him for lunch.  He requested something in red.  Originally I was thinking scarf but then I suggested a cowl to him and he liked the idea.  I found some red wool while on the mad hunt for "red".  I wanted a blackish red and that doesn't seem to be too popular out there or I'm not shopping the right places.  I didn't want to order on line because red is an unreliable color on computer screens (at least for me).  So once I had the wool then I hunted for a pattern.  This  lovely scarf pattern  popped up in my search and I liked the repetitive design.  Unfortunately one skein of sock yarn doesn't make a long scarf, another strong reason that I sewed the ends by kitchener stitch.  Easy peasy and he loves the cowl!

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments    in the comment section with a link to your blog. How was your weekend?  I have to confess, I cannot get enough of the leaves changing.  I've been stopping and looking and of course photographing.  Gorgeous and wonderful!  My weekend was nice and we had a tiny adventure yesterday.  We drove over hills and mountains to the amusement park which was hosting a craft and art festival.  The drive itself was fun.  The best park of Saturday was the weather, there was a fine drizzle all day long.  So the crowds were not manic, just regular crowds.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely. While at the festival, I had the BEST doughnut made by a firefighter company....seriously I died and went to doughnut heaven :) I asked the lady what she recommended and she said everyone wanted th...

Dear October: I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that you are here.  I've waited for you patiently over the summer months while extended heat waves lingered.  But now you have arrived and so far you have been glorious. The maple trees are losing their leaves yellow and brown first, the red just starting to appear.  Each year I'm captured by the beauty.  The mornings are crisp and sometimes chilly and once again fleece coats are donned before a quick run to retrieve the newspaper. At first yellow is my favorite color, then red, then orange, then the browns and purples.  I guess I like all the colors that you bring to me.  The mums are in full bloom being show offs now that the summer flowers have faded away.  I like their attitude.  While car riding, the rolling hills on the countryside display the changes leaves.  Oh so pretty. I get sad thinking of how my after dinner walks will be coming to an end during your month. ...

Good morning!  I'm happy to report that I finished that large novel, The Once and Future King  on Monday.  What a long book, technically that is four books published under one title but whatever, it counts as one large book on Goodreads.  I enjoyed the story and being in the land of Camelot.  This book was outside my usual genre reading and I'm proud that I stretched my tastes. The book I'm currently reading, The Daughter , is  mystery thriller kind of book.  So far, it's quite tame and not nearly as long as the previous book.  I only just started this novel on Tuesday so I don't have a formed opinion. I started a hat for my holiday knitting!  I am loving knitting on tiny needles with thin yarn.  Hopefully, I'll have some serious progress to share next week. What are you knitting and reading this week? Joining Ginny and Frontier Dreams