One Eventful Weekend

Turns out that the Drops Jacket can be knit in one piece - yippeee! I'm planning on finishing the right front tonight and kicking some left front ass before Sunday. My work colleague, Claudia promised to teach me how to crochet the edging. Not making any promises, but my niece might be wearing her new jacket sometime this year (a new personal best!!).

Even more exciting is how I spent my Easter Monday. Kimberly and I finally managed to meet up. She's come to visit her in-laws (who live about 75 minutes away from me) a couple of times now, but are schedules are usually all wonky. Thanks to the 4-day Easter weekend, we finally managed a day to meet up. For some reason, my camera refused to take any normal pictures - so here's an action sequence from our photo shoot attempt:

and a shot of the handsome chauffeur:

The rest of the weekend was spent cooking an Easter ham and turkey, eating said meats with veggies and sweet potatoes (not all dinner guests were impressed with that one, but me and the Venezuelan chowed down) with lots of chocolates and desserts. There was room painting, spring cleaning (please don't tell the kids how many old toys, crappy little Micky-D toys and parts of toys I threw away), picture re-arranging in the living room and general mayhem control. It's finally starting to look more like a home around here :)

3mm Needles and Cotton.....Eeeeek!

I give up - I don't want to knit an ecru tea towel with linen on 3.25 mm needles. It's Spring and I want color and instant gratification.
I figured a baby knit would be the perfect fix. I have the gorgeously soft blue from Italy and I lovingly patted it in my hands as I searched through every kid/baby book I have only to realize (duh!) that four balls is perfect for a small infant knit and I don't know anyone with boy infants. It just wouldn't mean as much to knit a sweater and not be able to immediately pawn it off on someone. And I'm still not in the "making babies" mode yet (long story and there's a light at the end of that tunnel, but I'm not knitting anything until I get doctor confirmation).
So, that leaves nieces and nephews. And my niece Erika is my most favorite niece to torture with my knitted wares. Wednesday night, I went up to the wool room and dragged down every last scrap of cotton I could find. From leftover Punto to stash-swap-acquired Knit Picks to a bag full of Rowan mixed that Mum found in a charity shop for 30p a ball (that's like $0.60 or €0.45 - PER BALL!) With all wares spread before me in the living room floor and sofas (did I mention that the Irishman's on the business trip?) I searched my pattern books again for something appropriate. The something I found was actually on the internet. Thanks to Deb, I found the Drop website again and the new kids catalog was where I should have started in the first place. I was dazzled by the first pattern I saw and cast on immediately with Cotton Glace.
quick aside: I've decided I don't really care how one is supposed to pronounce Glace (Glah-cey, Gloss, Glase, I think I'm going to say Glotch-ey just to annoy people).
So, to appease the Spring Goddess, I've gone from linen ecru on 3.25mm needles to white cotton on 3mm needles. Somehow this has fulfilled my wish and I am happy....who am I to question the Goddess?

Quick Pic from the Phone:

National Knitting Centre

We visited Donegal for a couple of days and while perusing my handy hotel guide to nearby attractions, I was delighted to find the National Knitting Center was just down the road.

National! Knitting! Center!

It promised a light-hearted look at knitting through the ages, the story of wool from sheep to shawl and a shop full of Irish yarn. What we found was slightly different. First, there was a shop with lots of Irish knit sweaters and caps. I sifted through the wares and talked to the shop assistant about why they had to close the knitting center and move to a smaller location (lack of visitors and support). I asked if they had any yarn for sale and she took me back to the....um....warehouse, storage facility, largest stash I've seen in my life.

They had shelves built from floor to 30-thirty foot ceilings. All stuffed with raw wool, coloured wool, rough wool, soft wool, thin wool, but mostly aran-weight wool and not a label to be found for miles. Not categories, names, wool-types, dates of shearing. recommended needle-size, dye-lot. Nada....
Just me and wool. So I searched out as much as I could carry (literally) and when the nice lady went further back into the shop to weigh it, she invited me along.
The next room offered the needed scale for weighing, the owner of the shop, a floor covered with bagged and tagged Aran sweaters and two ladies sitting and knitting saidsweaters. Turns out they sell sweaters (not sure where or how). And the knitters were totally excited to have their picture taken :)
So maybe it wasn't what the hotel had advertised, but it was certainly the most knitting I've seen in Ireland to date. And I made off with 1.5 kilos of wool.

Cute story about the red lace-weight in the middle. I asked if anyone knew the content because it was sooooo soft and squishy. The owner jumped into her office for a little Steiff bear wearing an Irish knit sweater made from a similar colour. But the bear wasn't wearing the same content of the squishy in my hand, he had a cashmere Irish knit sweater (or Aran Jumper, as the locals say). The shop had been consigned to knit cashmere sweaters for Steiff bears to be sold at Harrod's and she had their sample leftover. It's a good thing I had just dumped the contents of my wallet into their cash register, because I would have searched the car and Dave's pockets for enough money to tempt that bear away from her. I can't even imagine how much they retail for!
So, now to dream up project for my new yarn :)

Photo Tour of Ireland

Finally back home and still getting back to normal life. Just popping online for a quick photo essay. I've got so much to tell and don't know where to begin. So, for now.....

Our whirlwind tour of Ireland included a visit to the Dublin Zoo

and Giant's Causeway,

a great view from the hotel room in Donegal,

the National Knitting Center in Buncrana

and hanging out with friends.

Lots more details to come.

Back In The Saddle!

Landed in Ireland yesterday, getting settled now and have brought loads of knitting to keep me busy. Until I get my butt back in gear to blog again, I've got updates from Canada.

Flurries were forecasted and received, but they came in very large numbers.

Not to be stuck in the house, Mum and Dave made the best of a snowy situation and packed a picnic of sorts......

Time in the house was well-spent, though. Mum finished Erika's First Communion dress and Rick's new quilt. I'm hoping to get the next quilt, just as soon as I get around to measuring the bed.