Monday Knitting Update: July 15, 2013

It's the halfway mark of July, and I can't believe it! I haven't been knitting as much this past week, because I worked quite a bit. I did, however, finish an awesome, super long, seed stitch mustard yellow scarf!
It's made of a vintage, fuzzy acrylic, held double, on size 11 needles. Super long, too! It's going to be great in the winter time. I had it wrapped around my neck four times, and the ends still hung down to mid-torso. I have a whole bunch of this yarn, as well as the same type in an olive green. This scarf used two whole balls. I'll probably do a few more identical scarves, to facilitate selling them online with the rebrand.
Speaking of rebrand, holy stress balls. It's a lot of work. I have a friend working on my graphic stuff, and I'm hoping to have that done soon. I'm still playing around with SquareSpace, and trying to get all of that figured out. I'm also trying to figure out how I'll sell off the rest of my Knit, Nicole, Knit! line of knitted items. So many things to figure out, and October isn't getting any farther away.
What have you all been up to?

Monday Knitting Update: July 8, 2013

FINALLY! My mojo has returned! I've been knitting like crazy these last few days! I know it's partly due to StashDash2013, but I'll take what I can get! Here is a little peek at what I've made lately.

I've been working on a bunch of little yarn flowers. These have been turned into brooches for my summer shows. The grey in this picture is one of the tiny left over balls I had of the sparkly yarn I used for some head bands and what not a little while back. I'm so happy I got a ball finished, no matter how small it was! I have 20 or so flowers made now, which I think is a good number. I'll still try to get more done, though. I think they're super cute. I have one pinned to my purse and it just makes me happy looking at it.

This is a Wool Ease Thick and Quick scarf. Just a simple seed stitch, which is my favourite stitch for this yarn. most of the stuff I've made out of it, is in seed stitch. This also eliminated a ball of yarn. And being that its a large, bulky yarn, it's a pretty big ball that was used up. If I can get one of my large storage bins emptied, I will be more than happy. I have five bins in my storage unit, so I could bring one home if that's the case. Slowly but surely, I'm eliminating the stash that isn't ideal, and I will replace it with yarns that I love.

Here is the third ball I eliminated this week. This was an even larger ball. Not as bulky as the Wool ease, but definitely a bigger ball. I think it was almost 250 yards! It's a random wool blend I acquired at some point in my knitting career, and I think it looks awesome done diagonally like this. I think I'll be doing more scarves like this in the future. I have one more on the needles, and I'll probably start another one soon. It's still miles of garter stitch, but somehow seems more interesting. This is ball number three that's been used up this week. I'm on a roll!

Now ball number four. Another bulky, wool blend yarn. Patons Echoes Shetland Tweed, a discontinued yarn. It's a light, warm grey with flecks of red, yellow, blue and green. Really neat looking! It's a simple garter stitch scarf. I was going to do seed stitch, but I knit two rows plain before I thought about it. Oh well, I think it looks awesome anyway.

This is all I've knit since the last time I checked in. Not bad progress, I think. You can check my StashDash2013 progress on my post, here. Overall, this is four balls gone, bringing my total to +73.

Monday Knitting Update: April 22, 2013

These past few days have been super productive for me. I've been working a bit, but still getting lots of knitting done.

Last week, when Rick and I went to Trinkets and Treasures, we stopped at Michael's on the way back. I picked up two skeins of Luxury Wool to pair with two other skeins I have, as well as two skeins of Homespun. This adds 4 skeins to my stash down, bringing me to -10. I have a few projects in mind that will finish off some skeins, so more progress should be made soon!

Mel at Trinkets has asked some of the shop participants to make baby blankets in non traditional colours. I picked up some hot pink, and bright royal blue to stripe with charcoal for some more modern blankets. I finished the pink and grey, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through the blue now. I am loving the way they're turning out!

I've also been working on props this week! The middle photo on the right is of a Wool Ease Thick and Quick blanket I made. That little tail, all 8 or so inches of it, is what I had left after the bind off. I LOVE when this happens! I didn't waste a single inch of yarn! This finished off a nice big bulky skein of Wool Ease, which means this week I am actually -11 total! The nice thing about T&Q is that they're HUGE skeins, but not a whole lot of yardage, so they make a noticeable dent in the stash when they disappear. I have another blanket on the needles using two skeins of this awesome yarn, so that just about clears out half a drawer in my storage area!

Overall, this week has been a good one. I've been talking with a photographer about taking photos of some of my items, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how that works out.

How was your weekend?

Monday Knitting Update: April 15, 2013

Monday Monday Monday! It's the start of a week off work for me, I don't go in till Friday, so I'm going to be knitting up a storm! I've already started, knitting 2/3 of two different baby blankets. I thought I was being smart. Changing back and forth between them any time the colour started getting a little boring. It made the knitting just zip by. Then, I had to rip them both out after realizing I wouldn't have enough yarn to make either of them. A huge bummer, I'm not going to lie one little bit. It took me a little while between episodes of Doctor Who to wind them both back into balls. Oh well, on I went. I wasn't sure if I lied the two colours together at first, so I sent it to my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook followers. The colours are Rococo and Herb Garden, in Lion Brand Homespun. They're both pretty on their own, but I'm bad at putting colours together. The general consensus was that they look just dandy. So onto striping I went!
Rick and I started watching Doctor Who a few days ago. We started with the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston. I really liked him. "It's a banana grove now. I like bananas. Bananas are good."
Now, we're onto the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant. I think I like him a wee bit more. I definitely see the massive appeal he has amongst the really big Who fans. I'm not a fanatic yet, but I really love watching it!
Back to knitting. I made it quite a bit past where this photo shows me to be. I have fifteen whole sets of stripes done, and the colour combination has definitely grown on me. I think it would make a great blanket for any baby, but especially a little boy. I don't really care for the traditional pastels most baby stuff is. The farther from them I can get, the better. This blanket will be going to Trinkets and Treasures as soon as I have it finished.

Last week, Rick and I went to Windsor for some all you can eat sushi. It's conveniently located right across the street from Michael's. I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet, and I knew it was time to spend it. There were quite a few sales on yarn, but not much in the way of yarns I normally used. For almost exactly $20, the amount on the gift card, I ended up with the skein of Herb Garden Homespun, two Loops and Threads Luxury Wool, and two Bernat Mosaic. All this is for baby stuff, at least it probably is. I think I'm going to get a couple more skeins of the Luxury Wool in a neutral, and make some little hats. The Mosaic might be used for some cowls or scarves, I'm not 100% sure yet.
This adds 5 skeins to my total for the year. Which brings me to -14, which is about where I need to be. I'm going to crank out some yardage this week, so I should be able to get a couple more eliminated.
I have other knitting I've done this week, but nothing too exciting or actually completed to share. There's a nice little pile of baby knits on my desk that I'm just itching to share with you! I'll post about the RTS as soon as I have the photos ready to go.
What have you been knitting this week?

Monday Update: March 18, 2013

Happy post St Patrick's Day! I hope you're not feeling too ill this morning, as I know some are. All that green beer and food is making some of my friends look a little green this morning. I didn't partake in any festivities this weekend, I didn't even drink a beer. That's a little out of character for me; I usually have at least one beer on the weekends. This whole weight loss thing is always at the back of my mind, so every time I think I'm going to eat/drink something that's not the healthiest, I ask myself what's more important: happiness right now, or long term happiness in the future? This isn't me saying I never allow myself to eat stuff that isn't good for me, in fact, we had McDonalds for dinner last night. But, I try to think about what I'm putting in my body. That being said, I will probably be having a beer after work tonight. It will likely be an apple cider beer, so I can pretend it's kind of healthy.
Anyway, onto what I've been knitting this week! I don't have pictures of everything, but I do have quite a few. I have been working on making loads of head bands so I can be well stocked for the fall shows. I have almost a dozen waiting to be sewn up in my WIP basket. There are a few other almost finished objects in there as well. Since I got this basket, I've been keeping all my stuff in there until the ends are woven in, and I tag them. Then they move to my craft show bin. It helps me keep track of where everything is, and I like to do things production line style, so this facilitates that. Sew everything. Trim all the ends. Tag everything. I feel more efficient that way.
Onto what I've been knitting!
This head band is a custom order for one of my friends. She asked for it a little while back, and I just hadn't gotten around to making it. The head band was easy, it just took some time to figure out how I was going to make the flower. Most of the flowers I see on this style of head band are crocheted, which is something I just can't do. Once I figured it out, it was super quick to make. I'll definitely be making more. Actually, I have another headband just like this ordered, so it will be sooner rather than later.
I got back on the hexipuff train last week. I knew I needed to crank out a bunch if I want to be finished this thing in any reasonable amount of time, so I was just going to make a couple and hopefully feel a little better about it. I ended up making eight of them in just a couple days. I'm nowhere near caught up, but I had a lot of fun making them. The first one that started me down the rabbit hole was the red and aqua striped one here. It looks awesome, this is a favourite colour combination of mine, but it was a pain in the ass to actually knit. Doing stripes in the round on DPNs is something I didn't really enjoy doing. I don't know if I'll be doing many striped ones, that aren't self striping.
These are the first five puffs I cranked out. The top grey one is actually sparkly, and I love it. It's KnitPicks Stroll Glimmer yarn in the Chrome colourway. I think I have two skeins of it. My parents got it for me in my Christmas yarn package. The two blue ones are yarn from Evermore Studios. The rainbow and blue is yarn I got from a destash on Etsy. I'm loving the way these puffs are working up!
I laid out all the puffs I had made, and I have 21 at last count. (This doesn't include the puffs later on in this post) Together, they're not even large enough for a seat cover, so I still have quite a ways to go. I am having fun knitting them, which is the most important part.
I tweeted that I wanted to make the hitchhiker shawl, but didn't have the money in my PayPal account to purchase the pattern. I wasn't looking for a handout, just lamenting my broke-ness. One of my knitting friends from a gazillion miles away gifted me the pattern on Ravelry, and it brought a tear to my eye. I feel so lucky when things like this happen to me. I will definitely pass on the gesture when I can afford to do so. I pulled a skein of Lanitium ex Machina's yarn out, and got to work.
The colours are working up beautifully, with no pooling in sight. I'm up to twelve points. I would be a little farther along if I didn't goof up in the middle of a row and have a really wonky stitch. I had to rip back about 3 points to fix it. Totally worth it, because I know that if I didn't, I would notice that mistake forever. I'm slowly but surely building my personal accessory collection. This is going to be shawl number four (I'm pretty sure anyway) that I've knit for myself. I can't wait to finish it, but in the mean time, I am enjoying the knitting process.
I finished up the last few rows on a loosely knit orange neck warmer. I've had this on the needles for a few weeks, but haven't really been actively knitting on it. I had only about 3 rows to go before it was done, so I cranked them out and bound off. It's a 5x5 rib with an unknown yarn on size 11 needles. The yarn is from a bag of mill ends at Zellers, so I have no idea what it actually is. That's one thing I'm really going to miss when Zellers is gone for good. Just a couple more weeks to go. With the yarn that is left in the skein from this, I am doing a summery scarf on the same size needles, and I'll also be making a head band or two later on.
I made a few more puffs with the Evermore Studios yarn. The blue one at the top finished off a mini skein which brings my number down one. But! I had to get a skein of black Red Heart Super Saver to knit up the head band I mentioned at the beginning of this post. So no change for the week. I will be going through some of my stash this week or next and getting more yarn ready to donate. I'm starting to realize how overwhelmingly huge my stash is, and I know I need to start paring it down, or there will be problems.
What have you fine folks been up to this week? Any fun knitting you're working on?

What I've been Up To

Thank you for the input on my last post where I laid my cards out on the table as far as my debt goes. I didn't publish all the comments, but I did reply to all of them. I will update now and then about my progress, and what I am doing to have more money available for paying off my credit card.

This is what I've been up to lately as far as knitting goes. The first and fourth picture, I've already shared. I'm going to try to do weekly recaps of what I've knit every Monday. Some stuff might be repeated, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum.
The second picture is a small pile of the bows I sewed up last night. I have 15 bows total in those five colours. I want to have 100 made for the craft show I'm doing at the beginning of March. The third photo is of yet another neck warmer. My mom got me this gorgeous Homespun colourway for Christmas. Two skeins of it! I love it! It's so autumnal and warm looking.
I've been knitting loads, but I haven't finished any skeins of yarn yet! This is hopefully going to be remedied with some projects I have on the back burner right now. I need to work on stock for the aforementioned March show before I work on more wintery things for next craft show season.

I'm going to watch some podcasts and knit some more bows! I can't want to show you what these turn into! I think you'll love them!

Happy Birthday To Me, and My Week In Instagrams: January 4, 2013

Today is my birthday! It's been a pretty good day so far, but more on this later on in the post! Here is what I've been up to this week, in Instagrams. If you want to see the photos larger, check them out Here. These are in chronological order for once, instead of being backwards.

1) Rick bought us each an iPad for Christmas/our birthdays. I got a mini, and he got a retina, which he has since returned due to some dead pixels. He'll be getting a new one as soon as they get them back in stock. Mine is wonderful, I didn't expect to like it as much as I do! I need to download some more apps, mainly one to write my blog posts from.
2) Last week we had a couple pretty busy nights for empties. One guy brought back something like 30 cases of empty cans. It filled the whole upper section of the bin. We looked over the edge and couldn't see a single can of another brand. Crazy!
3) We picked up some movies from the new-ish local movie rental place. We've watched most of them, just a couple left to get to for me. Some of them were scratched or otherwise unplayable, which is a bummer, but they cleaned them and gave them back so hopefully we'll be able to watch them. Some of the movies we got were Crashing, A Lonely Place To Die, A Dominatrix Story, Albatross, And They're Off, Brotherhood, and I think there was one more, plus a TV show that Rick got. None of them were exceptional, but I enjoyed all but "And They're Off" that was terrible.
4) New Year's Day I watched some movies and had some snacks. It was a nice laid back kind of day. We don't usually do much for New Year's Eve/Day, so this was just my speed.
5) I knit another mustard lacy neck warmer, which was a made to order sale that I got on New Year's Eve. It took me a couple days to whip it up, but I love knitting with Lion Brand Homespun, so it's always a treat to knit with it. I used my KnitPicks Harmony Wood for this. I've used the Sunstruck a few times, for darker yarns, and I really, really like them. I have to figure out something to knit with the smaller sized needles so I can use them all! I have quite a bit of lace weight, so maybe another shawl or two is in order. This style of neck warmer is still my favourite thing to knit. In fact, I have two more on the needles right now! Not even kidding!
6) Rick and I stopped at Taco Bell when we went to Windsor to return his iPad. They have something called an XXL Burrito, which I decided to get. It was really tasty, but comically huge. I picked it up, and it must have weighed over a pound and a half. GIGANTIC. Next time I get it, I'll skip the fries and just eat it.
7) I started on the THIRD of four balls of yarn for Christine's daughter's gift. I was watching some YouTube videos while doing this (The one in the photo is This One, you MUST watch it) I haven't done much more than a few rows, and the baby shower has already passed (I missed out because of work), but I am okay with this. I will have it done before the baby gets here!
8) Yesterday before shipping the mustard neck warmer, I stamped my first fibre content and care tag. I bought the manilla tags at Staples, and got the stamp itself from TickledPinkPaperInk on Etsy. I am absolutely in LOVE with this stamp. High quality, crisp print, and the fact that it is see through is great. If you need a custom stamp made, I highly recommend TPPI. I might get another stamp from her with the same font and a similar layout and use it to stamp my business cards. And then possibly a third to make the earring cards. I want my branding to be consistent, and I don't want someone else to have the same type of cards as me (which is the problem with using Vista Print)
9) I told you I loved this neck warmer pattern! I finished this bright red one this week as well. For next fall/winter, I want to have sets made with neck warmers and one or two other wintery accessories, which I am still trying to figure out. I think matching sets are super cute.
10) And now we're up to today! I went and got a shellac manicure from the salon I get my brows waxed at. I bought a Groupon a while back, I think during the summer, actually, and finally got around to using it. I had a hard time deciding between colours, so I went with two: a really pretty reddish pink, and silver on the ring fingers to add some fanciness. Rick thinks multiple colour manicures are weird. What are your thoughts?
11) Rick brought me for Vietnamese today. We have a pretty sweet local place that makes some excellent food, and today was no exception. This first photo is of two of the three types of rolls we get: minced shrimp on sugar cane in the background, and fried spring roll type in the foreground. We also get the cold rolls in rice paper that are filled with vermicelli, shrimp and veggies. So much deliciousness!
12) This is my usual dish at this Vietnamese place. Vermicelli with spring roll and shrimp. I love it, I think I've gotten it there all but two of the many, many times we've been. It's almost like a deconstructed roll, as it has all the components, with the addition of a fried roll, and some bean sprouts. I add some hoisin, and it's prefect.

Thank ou so much for reading this far! I'm off to watch the last movie of the bunch we rented, as it's due back tomorrow, and then Rick's mom is making sausage soup for dinner! Have a good weekend!

Day Seven of NaBloPoMo

This morning started earlier than normal. I was up around 9. I think my theory of "late to bed, early to rise" is correct. I'll probably be going to bed later more often. I didn't have to be up this early, but it meant I had plenty of time to putter around before Rick and I had to leave. I made egg, mushroom and cheese wraps for breakfast, which were pretty tasty. I also had plenty of time to get my knitting together for the car ride we had on the agenda.


Earlier this week, we planned to drive the 40 minutes or so to Amherstburg today, where Trinkets and Treasures is now located. They've been open there about a week, and are doing fairly well. I had new stock to drop off, as well as take care of all the paper work that needed to be done. The new shop is beautiful. It's quite a bit larger than the last two locations, combined! The way Mel has the shop laid out is pretty nice, too. There are two pretty big windows at the front of the store. One of them showcases children's items, and the other has all sorts of things for adults. There is also a section of all kinds of beautiful jewelry, another with stationary and other paper goods, and other small sections so you can easily find what you would like to purchase. These cowls are a few of the items I brought in today. I also brought in a bunch of earrings, and a couple scarves. I wanted to bring more, but I want to make sure I have enough stock for the next two craft shows. Maybe I'll bring more in there after those are done. We'll see!

There is a "Christmas tree" in the centre of the store, that is made of old wooden ladders. Mel has this covered with a whole bunch of handmade ornaments. It's super awesome. She wrapped "presents" to put under it to add to that tree effect. I still have a few of my tiny winter hats on there. There are also hand painted bulbs, sewn ornaments, and quite a few others.
Overall, I really like the new store. I have a feeling it will do really well here. Amherstburg gets quite a few tourists, and I'm sure a lot of them would love to buy handmade goods. Not to mention, the people that live there really seem to like to support independent businesses.

On the drive there, I finished another knitted bracelet. This one was the bright blue one. I started a black cotton one right after. I only have an inch or two left to do on that one, and I will can it finished as well. I'm loving how these are turning out. Hopefully I can get more than 10 made before my next show in a week and a half!

On the way back, we stopped at an antiques store in Harrow. There was an amazing spinning wheel in the front window that grabbed my attention. It was in really good condition, from what I could tell, and was HUGE! Seriously, the actual wheel part was probably 3 feet or more across. The whole store was pretty big. And chock full of interesting things. We're planning on heading back there one day when we don't have Winston in the car so we can spend a long time in there looking at everything. I can't wait!

Onto some fun facts about me! I hope you aren't getting bored with this feature. Really, I hope I'm not boring you with this whole NaBloPoMo series!

20. Everyone close to me knows this one. I am very untidy and very unorganized. It doesn't matter what I do, I'm like Pigpen, with a dust cloud following behind me. I can tidy up the areas I use regularly, like the coffee and end tables, and the computer desk, but within as little as two hours it can be right back to square one. I am definitely much better than I used to be, but still not great. This is a big goal of mine: to be perpetually tidy. I don't mind a little bit of mess now and then, but I just want to be able to know exactly where everything is when I need it.

21. I work in retail, at The Beer Store, as I've mentioned before. I love my job, but there are certain things some people do that drives me right up the wall, and back down again. The biggest one, and it really shouldn't be, considering some of the crap I have to deal with there, is when people throw their money down on the counter, rather than putting it in my hand. After I give them their total, I extend my hand if they have the money out, and wait for them to put it in my hand. I don't do it before they have the money out, because it seems rude to me, almost as if I'm waiting impatiently. When my hand is out, and then they throw the money down on the (dirty/wet/beer and dirt covered) counter, and then I have to pick it up, it makes me want to throw it right back in their face. First of all, the counter is fricken FILTHY 90% of the time, no matter how much I clean it. In Ontario, our alcohol bottles are returned to The Beer Store, and you receive your deposit there. There aren't any bottle return machines at grocery stores or anything like that. Everything has to be processed by hand. People put bags of cans up on the counter, and inevitably, scummy, smelly beer spills out. I clean it as often as I can, but it still is pretty dirty. I digress. I don't want to stick my hand in that filth! So when people throw it down, I stare at it for a second, and then reluctantly pick it up and put it in my cash drawer. If the customer was exceptionally jerk-ish about it, I sometimes put their change back in the beer puddle. Rude? Maybe. But what goes around, comes around. This is just a faster circuit.
Does this make me a bad person? I hope not...

22. I am fluent in French. I grew up going to a French school from the age of 4 to 18. It was all French, all the time, except starting in grade 4, we had 40 minutes of English everyday. In high school, I took an English class every year, as well. I consider French to be my first language, as I learned all the grammar rules, spelling and what not in French before English. Now that I no longer use it regularly, I am losing my fluency slowly. We have a couple customers who come into work that speak French much more easily than they do English, so I try to have a short conversation with them if time permits. I'm trying to find some French blogs and podcasts to subscribe to so that I can use it more often.
My parents, my Mom mostly, made a sacrifice putting us in a French school. Dad grew up speaking exclusively French until he was about 10, and since then has lost most of his ability to speak it since then. Mom barely understands a word of it. They both missed out on a lot of our childhood school activities, because they were run in French. I don't want that to be for naught if I never use my French in a way to improve my life.

23. I have a bit of an obsession with pretty numbers. I don't like the way certain numbers look, and if it can be avoided, I avoid them. When I do deposits at work, and I have a lot of 20s, I try to deposit an amount that will be an even hundred. If I have 50s, I like the number to end with 250, 500, 750 or 000. When I count out my till at the end of the night, I am really satisfied when I have coins that are multiples of 5, or their total value comes out to an even dollar amount. I don't know how to explain it, but some numbers just... I don't know if "bother me" is quite right, but let's go with that. I guess I just find some numbers more aesthetically pleasing.

24. This one kind of goes hand in hand with the last one, so I am adding it today. There are certain numbers and dates that come up often in my life. Some of the numbers are 157, 23 and 13. The dates are my dad and brother's birthdays. I don't know what it is, but I see them often. A lot of times when I see commercials advertising something that has an end date, it falls on one of their birthdays. It's really strange. The numbers 157 and 23 are "okay" numbers, even though they don't fit any of the normal criteria for numbers I "like". I'm a strange person, I know.

I knit the last few rows on the teal shawl I posted about a few days ago just before sitting down to write the bulk of this post. I added a row of yarn over, knit two together just before the end, to add a little variety. And, the increases up the centre spine had a little openness that I wanted to mirror. I will be binding it off once I am done writing, and I will post about it tomorrow, or possibly the following day.

Today's 365 photo is of one of the huge windmills we passed on the way to and from Amherstburg. He have a TON of these turbines in the county. They are a pretty common sight, standing tall above the flat horizon here. There's a lot of controversy about them around here. People saying they cause health issues, and kill animals, and that sort of thing. I don't know what to believe about all that, but I love taking photos of them. I have one Instagram photo I took in the early spring that I'm thinking of getting blown up and printed on canvas.

I'm currently looking for some new podcasts to follow. I would really like some yarn or knitting related video podcasts. I already follow Yarngasm, and The Dyer's Notebook. If you have any suggestions for others, I would greatly appreciate it! I follow a lot of blogs, and usually I read those while knitting, but lately, my knitting has required me to look at it more often than usual. Not so often that videos will be lost, but often enough to make reading difficult. Please leave some suggestions in the comments!

This post has 1785 words.

I am at 11 785 total words for this month.

Day Two of NaBloPoMo

Well, here we are on the second day of this NoBloPoMo challenge. I finished yesterday's post pretty late, so not much has happened since then, as of this writing at 11am. I am going to try a pseudo live blogging format today, to see how I like it. I won't actually post this until the end of the day, though. So not really live, I guess just an hour by hour post? I don't know, I'm still sleepy.

11:00 am: I've been up for a couple hours. I had an important phone call just after 9 that I had to deal with. She's going to be calling me back later today to give me all the information. Sorry to be vague about this, but it's concerning some legal matters that I'm just not comfortable sharing here right now. I'm not in trouble or anything, so there's no need to worry about that.

I've knit quite a bit on the one shawl I have on the needles. This is another arrowhead shaped shawl. I had to undo a few rows because I'd dropped a stitch, but I've made it past that point. I'm trying to decide if I want to add yarn overs every few rows to give it some lacy detail, or just live it solid garter stitch. The yarn is slightly thicker than worsted weight, and sort of fuzzy, so I'm not sure if it will look strange being lacy.

12:00 pm: I decided to go without the lace. The other shawls similar to this one don't have the lace, and I want to be able to keep things consistent as far as pattern and price. I'm trying to have a few standard items so I can have prices that make sense. I want to get away from the completely one of a kind items. Those make pricing difficult.

2:00 pm: I got all dressed up, and had somewhere to go! I seriously woke up in the middle of the night last night with my outfit planned in my head. There was only one change, which Rick suggested, and the outfit was pretty much perfect. I loved the way this outfit turned out, and I asked Rick to take a quick picture so I could share it here, and this is the only one where I don't look like a complete ding dong.
Head to toe:
Glasses: Emporio Armani (from a couple years old)
Lips: essence stay with me in 04 trendsetter
Short Sleeved Sweater: Hand knit in Iceland, purchased at Handknitting Association of Iceland (also seen here)
Long Sleeved Shirt: Mark's Work Warehouse (glamorous, I know!) I initially bought this to wear under my fleece vest at work, which I do regularly, but it was perfect for under the sweater. This is the one change made. I was going to wear a grey striped long sleeved shirt. Rick said there was too much going on in the outfit, so I changed to a plain shirt, and this is what came of it!
Shorts: Gap I bought these when we went to the mall the other day, and paid about $15 for two pairs. Love them!
Tights: Zellers, I think. For like $1. I picked up a few pairs when I saw them. I got this same pattern in grey, and a solid grey. I thought I'd grabbed a pair of this pretty eggplant colour in the solid tights, but I guess not. I was a little bummed out when I looked through my drawers and couldn't find them.
Shoes and Purse: Payless. The shoes are sparkly silver, and I LOVE them.
I'm not sure if I will make outfit posts a regular occurrence here. I felt awkward as hell taking the photo in the mall. Maybe we'll just have to find somewhere less public to take photos. And maybe use a real camera, instead of a phone.
We went to H&M so Rick could exchange his coat that he got when we were at the mall on Wednesday. It was a smidgen on the small side, so he got one size larger, and it fits him perfectly. I'll have to get pictures of us in our winter gear, or at least of him, so you can see how handsome he is.
We made a quick pit stop at Mrs Fields/The Pretzelmaker for a yummy pretzel each. We were both super super hungry, and needed something to hold us over until dinner time. I never liked pretzels of any kind growing up, and now I really appreciate soft ones.

5:00 pm: We met up with Rick's parents, two brothers and the one brothers girlfriend to go to the buffet. We have a Caesar's casino in Windsor, and their Market Buffet is pretty stellar. The food, for the most part, was really good. I had breaded shrimp, macaroni carbonara, mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, mashed sweet and regular potatoes, smoked trout and a bunch of other stuff. I was only disappointed by a couple things. The dessert was great. By that time, I was stuffed, but I needed to get something sweet in me. I had a mini cheese cake, topped with bananas, a tiny vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting, and a vanilla eclair, which I only finished half of. I was really looking forward to getting a dessert crepe, but I was so full, I just couldn't do it. I hit that uncomfortably full spot that is never fun. As soon as the meal was finished, I was so sleepy.

7:00 pm: We finished dinner and sat for a little while. Afterwards, we went up to the gaming floor where a couple members of our party tried their luck on the slots. I'm not much of a gambler, and money is tight right now, so I just watched. Rick's one brother has awesome luck at the casino, so he pulled the lever and pushed the buttons quite a few times. His parents both played for a little while as well. We ended up leaving around 8:00, so I'm not sure if anyone won anything worth writing home about. I made Rick take a picture with me in the mirror in the elevator. He made his grumpy face, I was looking at the screen on my phone, it's grainy, and we're not even centred, so it's a pretty terrible picture. But, we have very very few together, so I appreciate what I can get. He's also wearing one of his Icelandic sweaters. I love all three of the ones he got, but I think this one is my favourite.

8:00: We made a quick stop on the way home to drop off some coupons for the goody bags that are going to be given out at the craft show I am doing at the beginning of December.  I'm getting really excited for the two shows I have coming up. The Made In Windsor show is in just a couple weeks, and I can't wait for it. I did incredibly well at it last year, and I'm hoping to do just as good, or even better, this year!

9:30: Home sweet home! The drive home was uneventful. When we got back, it was pyjama time. Those cute shorts I wore weren't very comfortable with all the food I had packed inside my belly, so I needed an elastic waistband as quickly as possible. After that, I watched Rick and Winston play for a while. The poor little pup had been cooped up in "his bedroom" (which is the office on the main floor of the house) since we left for Windsor. He had lots of pent up energy that needed to be released before he would be able to settle down for the night. The two of them playing together is hilarious. Rick can get Winston all wound up pretty easily. I'll have to post a video of them playing at some point.

11:30: I've been working on this post off and on since we got home. Writing 1667 words a day is going to be tough. I'm hoping that I can make it through this month and reach my goal. There are definitely going to be posts that are a lot of filler, and for that, I'm going to apologize now. I'm going to really try to have quality posts for as many days out of the month as possible. And by quality, I mean with knitting content, in addition to the day to day stuff that I will also be posting about. This is a knitting blog, after all.

My 365 photo for today is of some of the carpet at the Casino. We had to wait a little while for the rest of our group to join us, so Rick and I sat and people watched for a while. There were some interesting characters coming and going. Most of the crowd was in the over 50 age category, but there were some younger people as well. It was neat to see how some people got all dressed up to go out, others were still in their work uniforms, and others just treated it like any old day. I also watched one of the cleaning ladies dust all the ledges around where we were sitting. She came over by us, and cleaned the window ledge, and told us we should move over, because that part was clean now. She seemed to love her job, and really appeared to be genuinely happy to be there. I said to Rick that I love when people who aren't necessarily working directly with the customers are still so customer service oriented. She was smiling while dusting, and greeting every person that came near her. Now, I'm not sure if this is a job requirement or something, but she was super nice regardless. Every person we encountered while there seemed happy. The servers at the buffet were all really upbeat, and chatted with us while they changed our table arrangement around when we showed up with a much smaller group than what we reserved. Overall, the night was a really great experience, and that's why I chose this photo for the 365 project.

Once again, I really hope you've stuck around this long! If you have any criticism, constructive or not, I would love to hear it! Any and all comments on this or other posts are greatly appreciated. If there is something you would like me to post about, feel free to share!

This post has 1736 words.

I am at 2970 total words for this month.