E r i n K n i t s

This is one of the things that I have learned since I became a stay-at-home-mom. Another thing I have learned is that my house will never be clean, and when you knit a lot, you invariably end up with piles of scraps from various projects. There is yarn everywhere. EVERYWHERE. No lie.

I’m working up the yarn in the first photo of my last post now for a wonderful lady who purchased the owl collab from my store, and it’s knitting up just as wonderfully as I expected!

I finished the cardigan that I was knitting up for the winner of my auction on the Haiti Relief cart on Hyenacart, and I absolutely LOVE the way that it turned out. It got lovingly packed up and sent on its way to its new home this morning, and I do confess that I’ll miss it! The last few rows of the sweater made me a little nervous – I think I ended up with about 4 yards left at the end of the project. Yikes!

I’ve been spinning a bit, as well. Really enjoying it, to be honest! Here’s my third completed yarn for your visual pleasure. ;)

That’s about it for now! Ciao, babes. <3

Until my opening!

Previews are up on the HC store, but I like to share, so I’ll post them here, too!

I also participated in a Yarn for Woolies swap on the Hyenacart forums, and knit up these for my partner:

I had a semi-custom listed on the HC Haiti Relief cart from February 14th-21st, and am working on that as we speak – I hope to have it finished up by the end of the week, so I’ll post photos soon!

Aside from knitting, things really have been mostly uneventful. A keeps growing (and we’re pretty sure he’s got some teeth coming in), and I’m kind of in denial that he’ll be 6 months old in a couple of weeks. It’s crazy!

Knitting, knitting, knitting. That is the sum of my entertainment, these days.

I got my approval from Pamela at Wooly Wonder and am now licensed to sell knits made from her Wonderpants pattern! Hooray! In turn, I’ve scheduled my grand opening for March 1st, time tbd. There’s a number of things in store, so I hope you’ll pop over and have a look!

If you’re ever in the market for some excellent design services, you should definitely consider Amanda at Violet Minded. She designed the logo for Boreal Baby Knits (as I think I’ve mentioned before), and she did such an awesome job – I’m madly in love with my little trees. :)

Also, I’m donating a semi-custom slot to the HC Haiti Relief Auctions starting on February 14th, as well. If you’re in the market for some DD woolies, come and bid! It’s for a good cause. :)

I am open for YYMN (your yarn, my needles) custom orders, as well. If you’re interested in having some woolies knit up for your little ones, please email me!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas (or whichever Wintery holiday you may or may not have celebrated this past week)! We certainly did. My wonderful mother bought me a 12″ Ashford Knitter’s Loom, I got some clothes (that fit!) and a prime lens for my camera (Canon EF 50mm 1.8) that I’m going to enjoy fiddling around with. We were a little spoiled, but very appreciative. (Fingers crossed that my first foray into weaving is more successful than my foray into spinning. That hobby was woefully neglected from the beginning!)

Christmas was hectic (as I expected), but we definitely had a good time. I’m definitely not one to argue with two turkey dinners! And grandma made homemade turkey soup on Boxing Day which was also fantastic and delicious — it’s nice having family that cooks so well! I do have to say that the food is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. Oh — and the cake balls I made? BIG hit. Everyone loved them! I’m glad, because between baby wrangling and everything else the week before Christmas it took me way too long to finish the batch!

Tangent: we’ve had some beautiful skies the past couple of weeks. It’s been cold, but excessively pretty.

Lastly, my progress on Boreal Baby is coming along nicely. I sent of my licensing contract for Sheepy Pants, and am working out a few details on my licensing for Wonderpants. I’ve also contacted Sugarbubbie regarding the licensing for the Riding Hood Sweater and the Sleuthing Hoodie, so once everything else is organized I think I’m going to pick up those two as well. Manda of Violet Minded sent me my logo prototypes the other day, and they’re perfect. ♥ I’ve decided to host the store cart on Hyenacart (big surprise!), and went ahead and registered BorealBabyKnits.com and forwarded it to the cart for the time being. Now, nothing’s ready to stock yet, but the setup and preparation is keeping me busy!

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s Eve!

There’s been a lot of knitting going on ’round these parts!

Most of it is gift knitting, so I won’t say much, but I will share photos. There’s enough that if any giftees happen along that they should have fun trying to figure out what – if anything – is for them.

In associated news, I sent two samples to Pamela of Wooly Wonder for licensing approval on both Wonderpants and Perfection Pants, and am consequently looking into knitting-longies-for-hire. All things going well, I’m hoping to open up a hyenacart store and start stocking (at least) some custom slots shortly into the new year. Manda of Violetminded has very fantastically agreed to work out a logo for the store, which I’m pretty sure will be called Boreal Baby Knits. Here’s hoping everything works out! I’ll be posting a few of the pairs I’ve done up until this point shortly, once I have a little more time.

As for Christmas, I’m still pretty unprepared. We do have most of our shopping done, but I’m feeling very unmotivated with regards to wrapping. I am looking forward to the holiday, though. Lots of family to spend it with! Can’t wait! Aside from the time I get to spend with my family, my other favorite part of Christmas is my dad’s turkey – PHENOMENAL. I’m going to take photos of it this year for posterity…and to share with the internet, of course! ;)

What’s your favorite part of the holidays?

In fact, I’m fired from the internets.

I seem to have a wonderful talent for starting things and abandoning them — this seems most evident in every online journal/blog I’ve kept, especially over the last year or so.

Anyway, when we last spoke, I was expecting a baby. Baby is now here! His name is Archer (middle names Kit Hudson) and he was born on September 13th. He’s almost 10 weeks old, and doing wonderfully – I’m also doing well and keeping busy. In lieu of real content, here’s some baby spam for you:

Here he is, all fresh and new to the world…

And here he is this past week in a pair of very fashionable longies I knit him that are almost too small. Boo.

Now, I suppose the most interesting piece of information would be that I’m going to try and be a little more active both here and on my livejournal. Chances are, this blog will be slightly less personal, and slightly more full of knitting related things. That’s not to say I won’t talk about ANYTHING personal, just that I won’t go into a great deal of detail. If you have an LJ and you’d like to add me, just let me know who you are so I can add you back because it’s friend’s only.

Aside from that, it’s time to start getting ready for Christmas and I’m stoked! Are you ready for the holidays or are they sneaking up on you? :P

With summer finally rolling around up here, I’ve been keeping myself busy. Last weekend, my dad and I trekked to a somewhat-local greenhouse about half and hour out of town; it was endearingly chaotic, especially in comparison with the local greenhouse that I usually frequent. While there was a semblance of organization, it was minimal. Just a general groupings rather than the more specific categorization-and-alphabetizing I was used to. However, it was well worth it! I finally managed to pick up some annuals to fill the huge planter that I got earlier this year.

Annuals are somewhat new to my amateur gardening hands. I’m generally a big fan of simplicity, and with my tendency to be easily distracted, the majority of my garden is made up of perennials. Still, it’s nice to jump into new territory from time to time while I wait for the perennials to mature and develop their own sense of chaos. I’m an impatient gardener, so it’s always satisfying to me when things just suddenly grow and bloom of their own accord.

As an aside, I’ve been finishing up a few projects. I cast off the edge of my Liesl in Sundara’s Ruby Port ASM that I ordered from the Year in Color however many months ago. I need to finish up a couple of inches on the sleeves, but beyond that, it’s done! Only downside being the fact that I started it according to pre-pregnancy measurements, so the fit is a little awkward with my belly starting to stick out. I’ve also resumed work on my Jessie Lambdin shawl — yes, I know. How many times have you heard that one? Hahaha! But I really have! Puttering away on the leaf edging, which is tedious, but worth it. Continuing with the project wrap-ups, I got the scraps of Dream in Color Strange Harvest that I need to finish up the edging of my Tulip Baby Cardigan, and the Baby Surprise Jacket that I finished a few weeks ago just needs buttons! It’s almost time to start something new. ;)

How are everyone else’s summers progressing?

It looks like I really am terrible at keeping this blog up to date. Things haven’t really been out of hand, I’ve just been trying to come up with something interesting to say. The past couple of weeks have been spent fighting off the last semblance of winter that decided May Long Weekend would be a good time to dump a few final inches of snow on our heads and frantically trying to encourage my back lawn to grow into something that doesn’t look quite so much like a mud bog.

Between work and some minor renovations around the house, things have been relatively uneventful. I have a few new knitting projects to share once I get around to taking photos, so there are those to look forward to, at least! I do have one photo to share with you, though. Although it’s not really knitting related, maybe you’ll get some kicks out of it. :)

!! Did I mention that husband and I are expecting in October? That’s really what’s been taking up most of my time. I’ll admit that I’ve been lucky on the sickness end, and my first trimester passed almost completely lacking in any severe nausea; you can just imagine how happy that made me! We had our measurement ultrasound a couple of weeks ago, so I figured that now would be as good a time as any to post a bit of an update. ;)

So! I’m sure there’ll be more baby talk, and definitely some photos now that summer’s moved in up here.

What’s new and exciting with everyone else?

So, my first spinning "lesson" of sorts is coming along this Wednesday. I must admit, I’m really quite excited! I got the flyer and all the other little pieces for my wheel, performed some general maintenance (oiling of things, tightening of others) and now sit back to wait.

Winter overtook us with something of a vengeance this year, with almost a good steady month of -30°C. We’ve gotten a nice break this past week though, a quick Chinook-y warm front bumping up as high as +15°C! Everything is melty and unattractive but it’s not to last regardless. The break will be short, temperatures dropping back down into the -20’s in the coming week. Still! Don’t think I haven’t enjoyed this!

The holidays were good on our end–it’s a little late, but I hope that all of you had a great one as well! I was the lucky recipient of a number of lovely things this year for which I’m very thankful. One of the most amazing (and useful!) gifts was from my parents–a Roomba! Most fabulous little robot I ever did see. :)

In knitterly news, I finished my Noro socks and am still plugging along on the Jessie Lambdin Shawl. I must be one of the slowest knitters on the planet, I swear. I think that my problem is that I never give anything a deadline so I just plod away.

Something exciting will happen soon, I’m sure of it.

(Are my posts always this disjointed? Haha.)

All in all, I must admit that the Christmas spirit has been somewhat fleeting this month, although it’s been a little easier to grasp the past few days.

The suddenness of my aunt’s passing struck a chord in our family–all things considered, we’ve been lucky when it comes down to longevity. Death (in people I am close to) was foreign to me prior to this month, so it’s taken some adjusting. For all of us, really.

However, in light of the season, we’re bungling our way through and making the most of it. As my grandmother said on the phone this past week, "we stick it out for the ones that are left". It makes me happy that my family is close; we all talk regularly, and although we don’t see each other as often as we might wish (in terms of cousins/aunts and the like), we do love each other in our awkward ways. My grandparents are making the rounds this holiday season, stopping to visit my remaining aunt for Christmas Eve, and spending Christmas day with my cousin, her husband and their two small children. It will be good for them, I think. Although one is still too young for Christmas-ing, the other is the perfect age for all the magic. :)

Boxing Day, gram and gramp will pack into the car and trek further north to come and see my family. Can’t wait. :)

Myself, I’m doing all right. There are still the bad moments, but there probably always will be. Although it seems small now, in the grand scheme of things, one small run of bad luck led to my Canon Rebel (the "big" camera of the house) finally, and thoroughly giving up on me. It sputters when I try and turn it on.

It was sort of a blessing, though, as I’ve managed to scour together the money to replace it with the newer model (though I admit to waiting and seeing if it will go on sale Boxing Day)! I’ve been wanting to for awhile, but never had quite enough incentive. ;)

In honor of that camera, and the season, I’ve included a few photos from last Christmas. The details of the holidays are what I live for, this time of year.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas/WhateverYouCelebrate! <3