Rick's Grey Scarf and Made In Windsor

I started on the second skein a few days ago. The first one ended up giving me about 32 inches of scarf. If the other skeins are the same length, I'll likely only need 4 of them.
I still love knitting it, but it's starting to get to a less portable length. Do any of you have any tricks on how to keep large-ish projects portable enough to knit them on a city bus, or in a car? I'm scared the end is going to drag on the floor. I will likely post a photo of the scarf in the next few days.

In other news, I have sold an other hat at Made In Windsor! I am hoping to bring a couple more items in at some point this week to replace the two that have sold so far. If I sell at least 2 items a month, I will be incredibly happy. This shoudln't be hard, as long as everyone keeps promoting the store.

The Windsor Star Article

Graffiti a stitch at a time

By Rita Poliakov, The Windsor StarAugust 27, 2009

Nicole Drouillard is trying to fix up Windsor, but she's not using a hammer and nails or a garbage bag.

She's using yarn.

Drouillard and several of her friends have been knitting multicoloured decorations out of yarn and hanging them on Windsor's door handles, parking meters and railings.

To Drouillard, who started the initiative with her friend Samantha Cooper, they're the best kind of graffiti.

"It's art I'm putting up on a wall or a parking meter without the owner's permission, that's how I would define graffiti," she said. "It kind of draws attention to something it wouldn't have attention drawn to. ... It adds a little bit of colour, when people see it, that's different."

Drouillard's main goal is to spice up her neighbourhood. She started in early spring and usually hangs her knitted pieces outside of businesses that she thinks could use some decorations.

"It's mostly businesses that I support or my friends support or places that look like they can use a little bit of colour," she said.

The first one went up in front of Phog Lounge, and it was well received.

"I think Windsor needs it," said Tom Lucier, the co-owner of Phog. "It's so weird, because it stops so many people. Everyday I probably see a dozen people do a complete double take. People on bikes crane their necks."

Lucier sees this project as a pick-me-up for Windsor.

"I think Windsorites in general that are not involved in making the city better need to see that there are people that see the city differently," he said.

The concept for removable graffiti isn't unique. Similar decorations were knitted in cities like New York, Montreal and Ottawa.

Drouillard and her friends got the idea to knit decorations while surfing the web.

"It's something we kind of saw on the Internet, and I'm like, I think it's kind of cool. Windsor's down in the dumps. A little bit of colour might brighten it up," she said.

Drouillard, who learned to knit in Girl Guides when she was 11, can make several decorations a day.

"It's super simple. It takes me an hour maybe, so I can get several done in a day. It's just basically a rectangle. I leave a really long tail on it and sew it on whatever it's going to go," she said, adding that it doesn't take much to make.

"(It's) just two sticks and string. It's not hard. It's something anyone can do whether or not you have artistic talent," she said.

While Drouillard and her friends have seen mixed reactions to their art, they focus on the positive.

"Yeah there's a lot of people that hate it. There's a lot that are stoked on it," she said. "People like different things sometimes."

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

If you would like to see the full article form the digital edition, you can see the screen grab Owen took for me Here.

A photo of the plain, knitted scarf

RICK! DON'T LOOK AT THIS! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A SURPRISE UNTIL I'M DONE AT LEAST THE FIRST SKEIN!

This is the scarf as of about 10pm yesterday. It's actually more like a dark grey than a brownish, or whatever this colour is.

It's really mindless, and I am usually knitting it while catching up on blogs. I am a little nervous that the fact that it is so simple, and on such small needles that I will get bored of it. For right now, it is ok, I figure if I can get it done by the beginning of October, I will be all set.

One of the interviews!

Here is one of the interviews I have done recently.
Thanks so much for picking me!

A plain knitted scarf

It has been quite some time since I have knit a plain, garter stitch scarf. Recently, my boyfriend asked me to knit him a plain grey scarf. We looked at yarn the other day, and settled on Alpaca Natrual Blends, by Bernat in the Ebony colourway.
I picked up 5 skeins from Zellers (a not on this later in the post) today, and the wrong size needles. I saw 10, and picked up 10mm and went home. The yarn calls for US 10s, which are 6mm. Luckily, I had the right size at home, and I'm starting to knit right now. It's 20 stitches across, but this might change, depending on how wide Rick decides he wants it.

On buying yarn at Zellers: I was shocked to find that identical yarn at Michael's was 60 cents more a skein than at Zellers. This isn't a huge difference, but if I was buying a lot of yarn (5 skeins isn't a LOT but is a significant amount) there would be. Just goes to show that you should shop around before buying yarn for future projects!

My 200th update!!!

This makes update number 200!
When I started this blog, I didn't have any sort of expectations. I was blogging to record my knitting efforts. And I didn't even do a good job at that. I kept up with it, regardless, and here I am, 18 months, 79 followers, and countless comments later.
Thank you. Each and every one of you. The newcomers, and those of you who have been here from the get-go.

Yesterday, I met up with local photographer Tyler Brownbridge. He works for the Windsor Star, and photographed some of my yarn bombs for an article. Oh, I was in the pictures, too. That article should run either this Thursday or next, and as soon as it does, I will post it here.

Back to dishcloths

I am thinking about starting to knit more dishcloths. I have several made, but I think I should make more.
Adam, Christine's husband, suggested that I make some for Made In Windsor, and after some thought, it would be a good idea. No one else has anything similar there, everyone can use them, and they're easy to make.
Once I sell a few more items, I will likely bring in a few dishcloth packs to sell.

Yarn Shopping!

I went to Michael's yesterday armed with a 40% off coupon and a sales flier.
Wool Ease Thick & Quick was on for $5 a skein. I am used to paying about $8 each. I purchased 2 skeins of Black and one Fig. I am planning on trying the yarn out on the Knifty Knitters to see how they look as slouchy hats.
Speaking of slouchy hats, Christine from Made In Windsor informed me that I sold one on opening day! This means that I have covered my cost for the first month (I purchased a half space, which is $10 a month) as well as covered the cost of yarn for that project. Any sales after this one are money in my pocket! If I can sell one item a week, I would be incredibly happy. I am also trying to finish items around that rate to make sure I have enough stock to keep my space filled.

If any of you are Etsy sellers, you should leave me a link to your shop here so I can include one of your items on my I Love Etsy blog.

Over a week with no posts!

I am sorry for deserting you, dear readers!
I have been planning several posts, but had to abandon them for a short while, because of a work injury. As some of you know, I work in a deli in a grocery store. On Monday, a holiday for us Canadians, I was opening a salami, when the knife I was using slipped. I ended up cutting my thumb pretty deeply. I went to the hospital where they suggested I just use Steri Strips to keep the wound shut, rather than wait around about 3 hours until I could get in to get stitches. So that's what I did. My dear boyfriend, Rick, brought me to dinner after to cheer me up.
Because of this silly injury, I haven't been knitting a whole lot.
Otherwise, life is great! I have done several interviews with different people, the first of with was Kate H. from WAMM. WAMM, Windsor Arts & Music Monthly, is an awesome local paper that is always a great read. She came into craft night a few weeks back and asked if I would be interested in doing an interview. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity. She sent the questions to me via Facebook and I answered right away.
Kate's a super sweet girl and an awesome writer. (She read some of her poetry at the Gendered Experience show)
I have also been interviewed for the local regular newspaper. I'm not sure when that article will be published, I'm hoping someone on Twitter will let me know when they see it, because I don't get the paper delivered.
In other news, I have started a couple of new blogs. This time, I have used the Tumblr platform, as opposed to Blogger. Tumblr is a SUPER simple way to blog and I am enjoying it very much. I have two blogs over there, which are updated several times a day.
The first is DistillingWater. This is my personal blog. A sort of catch-all for anything and everything that interests me.
The second is I Love Etsy. I am posting several Etsy items every day with a link to the sellers shop. This one is a lot of fun. I look through Etsy for about an hour a day, and find 10 or so items that I really like and post them.
Overall, life is great.