Accomplishments of the week - Oct 15, 2018
Accomplishment #1
I've spent the past week sketching and swatching many, many cable patterns for a new design I'm working on. I love this part of the design process and usually have way more ideas than I can fit in one project, so I often end up with tons of swatches. Sometimes I like certain aspects of the swatch I'm working on, but want to try it with a different needle size, a different yarn, or I have an idea to tweak it a bit to make it even better.
At some point it's time to stop swatching and start editing down the ideas into a cohesive design, which is where I'm at now. Once I have a good idea of what I'm planning to do, I like to write up the pattern as much as possible before I start knitting the sample. This way I'm working more or less from the finished pattern and as I'm knitting I can catch places that might need additional information or that could be better worded. I'm looking forward to showing you the finished design soon!
Accomplishment #2
I really wanted to go apple picking with my kids this year so Debbie and I took a Thursday afternoon off and went to the organic orchard at Ile St-Bernard. Neither of us had been to this orchard before, but when we found out it was only $7 for a big 20lb bag of apples we picked as much as we could. We ended up with 6 bags, 2 for each of us plus 2 to bring to our parents' place to make Thanksgiving pies. They're not the greatest eating apples, but perfect for cooking. So far I've made a couple of batches of apple butter and still have some waiting to be made into apple sauce and apple juice. Yum!
Accomplishment #3
Sundays are supposed to be family days in my house, days where I don't work and we spend time as a family going out together or doing things together around the house. In reality this has not happened as much as I would like lately. There always seem to be other obligations that mean I end up working on Sunday, or so much housework piled up that all we do are dishes and laundry. So this week it felt like a real accomplishment that we were able to make Sunday an actual family day. We went to Parc Jean Drapeau so that we could climb to the top of the Tour de Lévis - something my son really wanted to do before it's closed for the winter. After taking in the views at the top, we had a picnic lunch and walked around the park for a while. And when we got home we made homemade pierogis from scratch! It was not a quick meal, but it was so much fun to cook something new together and they were delicious!
View of Montreal from top of Tour de Lévis
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Free Pattern: Attic Windows Recipe
The story of this pattern starts back in 2008 when Elizabeth and I, along with our sister Margaret, decided that we wanted to make a blanket for our parents as a gift for their 25th wedding anniversary. Elizabeth suggested we base our blanket design on the traditional Attic Windows quilting pattern, and she came up with a simple technique to knit the squares.
We wanted to share the basic technique for the Attic Windows squares, because it's so adaptable, and so much fun to play with! So, we decided to create a free "recipe" version of the pattern, that shares the basic technique as well as a step-by-step guide on planning your Attic Windows project.
Elizabeth Sullivan
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