Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Christmas Knitting

Above is the cloche I knit for my friend Maria. This is my first go at felting and I will definitely do more.
I designed this shawl for my mother to take along on her trip to Hawaii. This shetland lace shawl is based on the flowers which populate her garden. I used Malabrigo lace to make this piece.
 
This final project is for me. The pattern, Easy Seas by Knit/lab,  and was intended to be knit with a sport weight yarn. I, however, used a lace weight by Sweet Georgia Yarns, and altered the number of repeats to maintain width and length. A quick and easy project made with a cashmere and silk blend in a deep, rich turquoise.

It's Been Too Long

Life has made it difficult to sit down and write for the past few months. Things have been busy here is Etobicoke. Jim and I were exceedingly busy in out lead-up to Christmas. I devoted numerous hours to costuming for my school musical, The Scarlet Pimpernel. While I was not thrilled with this show, the kids did reveal some extraordinary voices and the costumes stole the show.



In addition, Jim and I had a busy season with our side business, Earthcandy. We did numerous craft sales and enjoyed our busiest season to date. We sold a lot of Jim's jewellery and a number of my uniquely designed shawls and toques.

I also managed to complete 3 paintings to give Jim for his birthday. He had been dying to have portraits of the pets so I managed to pull off an oil painting of each.






We decided to spend the holiday at home and avoid the usual trip to the east coast to visit Jim's family; his mother and sister spent a week with us in November. It was great to find time to do some Christmas decorating and baking.


We had a delightfully quiet break and even found time to get a few jobs done around the house. We finally finished the bedroom we started working on this summer. We installed the Church rail as a headboard as well as the repainted mexican tin sconces. We love it!

We also found time to hang all of the artwork we purchased that had not yet found a home on our walls.