life as heatherly.b

Last Friday I kidnapped my friend Jordin and her two wiener dogs (Gabby & Bishop) in the name of yarn. I wanted to go to this yarn outlet and it was waaaaay out of the city, about a 2 1/2 hour drive, which is a pretty long drive just to buy yarn. I didn’t want to go alone just incase my car broke down or something happened so I “kidnapped” Jordin (who is not a knitter)  and brought her with me for the long drive.

The drive to Listowel from Toronto was full of farms, farms and more farms, not much interesting scenery really, but it was still a pretty fun drive. Jordin and I were exlclaiming “OH! Look at that cute house/barn/baby animal/horse and buggy!!!”  the ENTIRE WAY and I luckily remembered to make a long iTunes playlist the night before so we had some good music to pass the time. When we finally got to Listowel the yarn outlet was easy to find,  Jordin took her dogs for a walk while I perused the store, and as soon as I walked in the door I knew that it was worth the 2 1/2 hour drive, it was yarn heaven!

They had every type of yarn in every color and it was all discounted. They also had bins of remnant yarn that you could buy for 35 cents an ounce… 35 CENTS AN OUNCE! It was a full on double rainbow of yarn! lol

I spent about 15-20 minutes wandering around picking out the things I wanted. Honestly I thought my bill was going to be at least $200 as I quite literally had a big ass garbage bag full of yarn waiting for me at the register, but to my utter astonishment my bill added up to only $115 (YAY!).  I even asked the nice lady at the register “Are you sure?!” to which she replied “uh, yes…” and promptly gave me a look that said she was worried about my sanity.  Then the lady at the register asked me what I normally like to make, I told her, granny square afghans, slippers, hats, and she starts pulling out big bunches of patterns and adding them to my bag FOR FREE and these weren’t those 1 page paper patterns you get at Michaels in the yarn asile, they were the nice glossy books full of patterns, it was great!

At this point, Jordin was hysterically laughing and saying “you just bought a giant garbage bag of yarn, you are so weird!” and I was kinda laughing at myself too, it did seem like a lot of yarn and I was worried I went a bit overboard but with the way I go through yarn I’ll probably have to make another trip up there before this year is up. I’ll have to make Jordin something nice for her birthday and then maybe she won’t think I’m so weird.

I set up a little yarn pyramid so I could show my husband, I thought it would be better than showing him the garbage bag full...

P.S – This is one of the towns we drove through to get to Listowel, I had to stop for a picture…

Thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions on how to fix up my Nannie-slippers, the most common suggestions were smaller needles and thicker yarn so thats exactly what I did and VOILA! They couldn’t have turned out better if I cloned the original slipper, I’m so happy!

Here is a picture of my Nannie (the daughter of my great -grandmother who originally made the slippers, my moms mom, my grandmother…confused yet?) wearing the slippers. She is the one that misses the slippers the most since they were made by her mother so this pair was destined for her, I was going to wait to give them to her for Christmas but I was too excited about how well they turned out, I had to give them to her a.s.a.p!  My family all agree that this is as close as we’re going to get in recreating the original Nannie-slippers, I think they are awesome!

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Knitters of the internet I am in desperate need of your help! I am having trouble making some slippers and it is imperative that I figure out how to do it properly before Christmas, let me explain…

The reason I learned to knit & crochet was because of my great-grandmother, we called her Nannie-in-the-big-apartment (we had 3 living great-grandmothers and 2 grandmothers when I was a kid so we couldn’t just call her “Nannie”, awesome eh?). She use to make these knit slippers for everyone and we all loved them and had soooooo many pairs hanging around that we never thought we would run outl! Sadly at the age of 90 Nannie-in-the-big-apartment passed away. Its been a few years since she died and I still miss her so much. To be honest my number one regret of the last decade was never asking her to show me how to knit or how to make her slippers, it would have been so great to hang out with her and learn but it was a different time and sadly knitting and hanging out with my grandparents were not in the forefront of my mind…but I digress… So over the years these knit slippers have been getting lost and wrecked and we are slowly running out of them (I luckily have one left, not one pair, just one slipper that I’m hanging onto). At this point I feel like I need to take up the charge of making these slippers for my family and I want to make them as close to the “Nannie-slippers” as possible! I’ve tried a few times to recreate them but I’m doing something wrong and I can’t quite put my finger on it, I am way better at crocheting than I am at knitting so I need a knitter to come in and give me some advice on what to do.

This is a Nannie-slipper

A closeup of the Nannie-slipper

This is the best Heatherly attempt, they looks pretty similar but something still isn't right.

A closeup of the my attempt

Left: Nannie-slipper Right: My Attempt

Ok, so here is how the Nannie-slippers work: It is basically just a square or rectangle of K2 P2 that is folded in half and the ends are sewn together. I used 4mm needles with Red Heart Super Saver yarn, I usually cast on 52 stitches so it starts and ends with the same stitch, then I do a quick crochet chain for a drawstring. Sounds easy enough right? Mine turns out so flimsy and loose that when I wear them they stretch and my toes pop out after a few days, the Nannie-slippers are so much more durable, they last for years for some reason. What am I doing wrong?  Please leave a comment to let me know what you think or you can email me at heatherly.b@hotmail.com

THANK YOU!

My last blog post was all about how I was going to finish off my granny-square-leftovers blanket and start making my Christmas gifts early so I wouldn’t have to rush through everything and become an insomniac in order to finish it all come December. As I was writing that post I could picture myself making Christmas gifts without a looming deadline, at my leisure, no rush, easy peasy, what a lovely thought! Well…about that…it’s not happening quite that way anymore.

Inspiration struck yesterday in the form of a blog post via the amazing blog Attic24 and I just had to start a new non-christmas-related project.

I was hooked (bazinga!) from first glance, I got one look at the pictures of her granny-stripe afghan and I could feel my carefully laid plans crumbling down around me. As soon as I could I made a bee-line for Michael’s and stocked up on all different colors of yarn (*SQUEE!*) and now I MUST start my own granny-stripe afghan within the next 24 hours or I might just die…ok, obviously I won’t die, but it will really REALLY bug me!

Oh yarn, why do you tempt me so!

It's not quite a double rainbow but it will do...

As a added bonus I picked up some Red Heart Supersaver on SALE! These will be perfect for my Christmas gifts, when I eventually get to them...

I hope this won’t take me months and months to finish, I haven’t decided how big I want it so it may only take two weeks or it may be a marathon project… Maybe my Christmas plans can be somewhat salvaged once this project is underway but I’m already thinking that I may begin to regret my rash decision come Dec 24th.

I’m sure that I am not the only knitter/crocheter with the problem of what to do with left over yarn. More often than not it sits around in baskets, bags and boxes and waits to get tangled or used for small projects and I don’t know why but this really REALLY bugs me! While I was on staycation a few weeks back I amalgamated all my bits and pieces of left over yarn into one big basket and decided that their time had come, no longer would they be banished to the land of leftover yarn! I toyed with different ideas on what to make, I thought maybe pillows, scarves or slippers since the balls of yarn were so small, but I’ve been in a blanket making sort of mood lately so I ultimately decided that a granny blanket would be the best and fastest way to use up all the yarn.

This is what I started with.

This is what I've done so far, I'm at the halfway point!

I’ve used about half of the basket of yarn and I think I have just about half the amount of square that I need to make the blanket big enough for my bed so I think it will work out pretty well. I’ve become a bit of a granny-square-oholic, I should really start to branch out soon by making something other than blankets or learning a new stitches or something but I just LOVE the ease and colours of granny-squares, its gratifying making something like a blanket out of the scraps leftover from my other projects. And as an added bonus I’m not the only person who is super happy about this project, my husband is excited for all the bits and pieces to be gone (they seem to be one of his pet peeves, who knew?) and he has always wanted me to make a big blanket for the bed so its a win situation all around!

I’m so excited for it to be finished!!! I’m hoping to have it all done, border and all, by the end of next weekend so that I can leave the next few months free for my Christmas crafting, I’ve set myself the goal of handmaking all my Christmas gifts this year and I have a feeling I’m going to need all the time I can get!

Last year in August my parents moved to a farm in Prince Edward County Ontario, they refer to it as “The County” and if you’ve never heard of it, it is basically a big island in lake Ontario near Belleville and Kingston. They had owned the farm for a few years but it was more of a hobby thing, then they decided to leave city life and live in the county exclusively. The move was big change for my entire family, myself included, my parents had never lived outside of the GTA before they decided to move and everyone is still adjusting to them living the “county” life.

Prince Edward County. My parents live in Cherry Valley which is in Athol down at the bottom of the island.

My parents bought the house I grew up in (in Streetsville, Mississauga) when I was a baby and they lived there ever since, even though I got married and moved out I was still only a 20 min drive down the 401 from them and I could stop by and visit whenever I wanted. Now they are a 3 hour drive away, to me it really feels like they live in the middle of nowhere and to be honest I had never even heard of Prince Edward County before they started talking about buying the farm.

I was pretty lonely and sad when they first moved. My sister and brother moved out there with them and even though I still have some of my extended family and my in-laws in Toronto, it was a bummer that the days of visiting my parents whenever I wanted, calling them if I had car problems and shopping with my mother on my days off were pretty much over. I don’t get a chance to visit them much as I don’t really like staying out there, usually I drive there in the morning, spend all day there, then I drive home in a zombified state (soooo tired!), for a grand total of 6 hours driving just to spend 5 or 6 hours with them. I’m always happy to visit my family but I don’t usually get to do much other than hang out on the farm while I’m there since I’m only there for a few hours at a time. Although I’ve visited the county a bunch now that my parents live there it was never really my thing, I just didn’t get why people would want to live in the middle of nowhere, far away from where all the exciting stuff is happening.  That being said, over the last few months the county has started to grow on me, not so much that I want to move there tomorrow but I’m starting to see the appeal of small town life.

The vineyard on my parents land.

The road my parents farm is on, it's lined with pretty wild flowers and this time of year the corn is taller than me!

Picton, which is the closes town to Cherry Valley (where our farm is), is probably one of the nicest towns I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting, it has everything I would want in a city or town conveniently arranged on one street! It has a wool shop that is full of beautiful hand spun wool made with materials from the area, they have a great book store with new and used books, a huge library, a marine museum (that is free to the public), a fabric store, all kinds of vintage shops, a cute coffee shop, tons of restaurants, a Sobey’s, a Tim Horton’s, a Canadian Tire and even a fantastic little movie theatre (It’s called The Regent, my sister works there) that shows movies as well as operas and has concerts and art exhibits too, even Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe had a performance at the Regent! To my surprise all the shop owners are friendly and kind, the stuff they sell isn’t ridiculously over priced (unlike some shops in Toronto), and it’s beautiful old buildings are a pleasure to look at.

The Regent

Coffee Shop

This is outside the Marine Museum. Sir John A Macdonald lived in the county!

Fresh food!

This store was AMAZING! All the wool was so beautiful, it was like I died and went to crafting heaven.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to visit my parents on a beautiful day and since I was on vacation I had lots of time to spend there. Also I planned my visit to be on the same day as the Prince Edward County Quilter’s Guild Show. My mom told me about it a few months ago and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, I figured it would be pretty boring and full of old ladies (not that there is anything wrong with old ladies) but I’m really happy I went, it was one of the coolest crafty shows I’ve been to.

hmm...I think this person likes quiltz...

These quilts were absolutely amazing. Some were hand stitched (OMG!!!), some were done with machines and some were traditional while others were more modern. I met a really nice lady named Edith, she was 90 years old and she hand stitched (!!!) an enormous quilt that was in the show, when we asked her how long it took she said ONE WINTER. um….wow, I think that is pretty impressive, don’t you? Also, the quilt she made was for sale for $1000. um…wow again. Don’t get me wrong, it would be totally worth it, it really was very beautiful, but still…wow!

Edith and her gigantic hand stitched quilt.

Hand stitched with 396 different fabrics! I LOVE IT!

One of my favorites!

This quilt wasn't at the show but I liked it so much I had to put it in this post, it was in the window of a shop called Kelly's in Picton. I know its hard to see in the picture but it has robots in each square. My husband would love this!

The quilt show only happens once ever two years, and I can understand why. Each quilt had a little description of the person who made it and how long it took, Edith’s one-winter quilt was the exception, not the rule. Some of the bigger ones took up to 3 years to finish, and that my friends is some serious crafty commitment!

It was  a great day, probably one of the best days I’ve spent in a long time. I got to see my entire family together for the first time since the move, we had a barbeque, went to see the Lake on the Mountain (if you’ve never heard of it, look it up!), we shopped in Picton, and we went to the quilt show. If this is what “county” living is like, then I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested. For the first time since my parents moved I feel like they knew what they were getting themselves into when they made the decision to move out of the city and while I can’t picture myself living there, I am already planning my next visit to the county.

Lake on the Mountain.

The ferry off the island to Kingston.

Why not.

So, I finally had some time, now that I have a weeks staycation off work, to head over to my grandparents house and take some quick pictures of the granny-hexagon Christmas stockings I made as gifts last year. I originally wanted to knit everyone a stocking but I suck at knitting socks (I do not understand the process at all! I NEED lessons!) so when I saw this pattern in Crochet Today I knew I was saved!

This project took me forever to finish, I have a pretty big family and I wanted to try to make each person a stocking with colours they would like. I was very excited to give them to my grandmother so I brought them over early so she could fill them with goodies, that way when everyone showed up on Christmas morning they would all be full of gifts and ready to open! However, on Christmas Day my sister brought her boyfriend to our grandparents house and I ended up being ONE SHORT!

I felt so awful. His existence had slipped my mind completely and I don’t know how it happened! Luckily my grandmother kept our old stockings so we quickly dug one out of the closet for him, but it didn’t match everyone elses. Unfortunately it was very obvious that I forgot about him (Ryan, if you’re reading this, SORRY!!!). So now I have to dig out my old Crochet Today issues to revisit this pattern and make one for him for this Christmas and I was thinking I would make a few extras just so this problem doesn’t happen at Christmas’s down the road with other unexpected guests.

All things considered I think they turned out pretty well. I only wish we could use them more than one day a year.

I’m starting to get a little obsessed with making crochet flower/ granny square blankets, I love the way the first one turned out so much that I have been crocheting non-stop making more flowers for more blankets and I can’t seem to peel myself away from it for long enough to get anything else done! I’ve been using my yarn stash almost exclusively to make these blankets just so I can use up the bits and pieces of yarn I have hanging around, (my husband is ecstatic that I’m using up my stash but little does he know that this just means I have to buy more!) and the added bonus of making these blankets piece by piece is that I can take my crocheting everywhere with me without having to carry tons of yarn around! I’ve taken it to the beach, to work, to my friends houses on movie nights, etc. Basically wherever I go, it goes too, and I’m really getting a lot more done than I would normally would if I just crocheted at home in my spare time.

This is the one that I’ve made the most progress on, most of the squares are done and I’m in the process of sewing everything together. The first 2 pics are of the half finished squares and the last 2 pics are of the almost complete blanket.

And this is the one I just started, I think I’m going to give it to someone for Christmas. Its going to be a little more conservative than the other ones I’ve made, I’m only using blue, white and grey for the flowers and then white and beige for the squares.

I have a few other projects I’m working on too, nothing big, but I am sooooooo into making the flower blankets right now that the other projects are very much neglected. I’m on vacation this week and I plan on spending a lot of time catching up on my half done projects, hopefully I can rip myself away from the crochet flowers for a day or two to finish off these other things and get them out to the people they need to go to.

And finally, just because I can, I will leave you with a picture of my cat (her name is Peeka) looking very unhappy while getting her picture taken, I said “say cheese!” and this is the face she made at me. She has such an attitude problem.

I have been having some trouble sleeping lately. Normally I’m a really heavy sleeper and it takes the equivalent of a large scale explosion to wake me up (I set 3 or 4 alarms in the morning to make sure I wake up for work), but for the last few days it seems like every tiny noise I hear wakes me up and I cannot get back to sleep no matter what I do! Then, on Friday night as I was lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come, I was inspired to make something! I ended up going through my yarn stash at 3am and I found a bunch of Lion Brand Wool Ease – Thick & Quick that I bought months ago and I used it to make a case for my new camera. It’s a super simple case with a draw string, it only took me an hour to make and I didn’t use a pattern or anything. I really like how it turned out but my husband keeps saying it looks like Miss Piggy’s head (LoL!)!

I carry my camera in my purse wherever I go (yes, I carry a BIG purse) and having a big, chunky camera case is not always practical but at the same time I worry about my camera getting all bumped around when I’m out and about. I’m hoping that because the yarn is so thick and cushy it will give my camera some extra padding and keep it safe from the other stuff floating around in my purse…I guess only time will tell.

Happy Summer!

I’ve been loving the summery weather lately, there has been lots of sunshine and that means lots of beach time! Things have not been very busy with me lately which means that I have lots of free time for crocheting and I have been using that time to make something awesome!

A few posts back I posted a picture of a blanket that belonged to my Mother-In-Law, it was made by her mother (my husbands grandmother) and over the years it has become ragged and a little nasty looking. It’s too far gone and I can’t fix it, so she gave the blanket to me in hopes that I would be able to recreate it and I think I’ve been able to do just that!

I couldn’t find a pattern similar enough for my liking so on a Saturday afternoon I sat on my couch and tried to figure out how she did it. Mine is not exactly the same but it’s very close and I am extremely pleased with the overall result.

This is the original blanket.

And this is the one I made.

I know mine is super colorful compared to the original, but since I wasn’t following a pattern I wanted to try it out first to make sure it looked okay. For the most part I used the little bits of yarn I have left over from other projects. I plan to make one with the same color scheme as the original and give it to my Mother-In-Law for Christmas this year. I’m so happy with how it turned out that I really can’t wait to make another one!