It seems a little crazy that it was almost a month ago now that my boyfriend and I set out for our summer vacation! We left by train to Halifax at the end of June and spent a very full ten days visiting friends and family, and exploring the province in our trusty little Prius borrowed fromCarshare Atlantic. I'm not the best travel photographer, as my tendency is to leave the camera behind in favour of just relaxing and enjoying the moment, but I did manage to remember to snap a few photos here and there!
I moved house. On July 1st. In Montreal. In the middle of a heatwave. July 1st is the traditional moving day in Quebec which means that a ridiculous number of people are all trying to move house at the same time.
So far in my 10 years in Montreal I'd managed to avoid taking part in this tradition, but not this move.
I have a box of vintage sewing thread I inherited from my grandmother that is all on beautiful wooden spools. But of course now when you buy thread it's on plastic spools.
It used to be that when you bought embroidery thread it came with a little paper sleeve to keep it tidy - now it's plastic. And I have these little plastic organizers to wind the thread onto which is convenient, but couldn't I have just used bits of recycled cardboard?
One of the things I'm most excited about getting done this week is setting up a new bee hive. We've had hives in our backyard for the past few summers, but I haven't been really involved in taking care of them too much (it's been more my boyfriend and his brother's project). Unfortunately this year none of them made it through the winter, so we decided to do a bit of a re-set, with my boyfriend and I taking on more of the responsibility for them, and moving the hive up onto the roof of our building so we'd be less likely to get stung while gardening.
This past week has been a tough one: teething baby, husband with a week-long migraine, preparing to move house in 3 weeks... The thing that's kept me going through the stressful week has been my knitting. I'm working on a new sock pattern using Pizzicato in the Palestra colourway to be released next month.
Both the festivals we've attended this spring (the Knitter's Frolic in Toronto and the PEC Fibrefest last weekend in Picton) have been great - a chance to get our yarns and patterns out in the world, and to connect with friends both new and old. But preparing for them keeps me incredibly busy, and I was missing out on getting to spend time gardening, which is one of my favourite things to do at this time of year.
So... I'm a little bit late with this week's post. I had grand plans to post last night after returning home from Fibre Fest in Picton. And of course after a long drive with two kids, all I wanted to do was eat dinner and go straight to bed. But I still want to share last week's accomplishments with you, so here they are!
With two young kids at home, it often feels like I run around all week and never get anything done. So, this is my effort to reflect on the week and celebrate successes both large and small, knitting-related or not.
I've been spending some time this spring working on developing new gradient sets in ourCrescendoyarn for a couple of different projects, and I thought it would be fun (and hopefully interesting!) to document the process here.
It's no secret that I love tea - which I think pairs perfectly with knitting! Most of the time I drink regular old orange pekoe, or roiboos if I don't want the caffeine, but a cup of chai is always a nice treat and changes things up a little bit.
Hi, I’m Sarah! I’ve been working at the Sweet Paprika studio helping out with everything from dyeing to packing to washing and winding. I started out as an intern, spending part of my 2016 summer learning the ropes and lending a hand. I now work with Sweet Paprika part time during the school year. Like Annie (who wrote about her experiences as a dye studio intern here), I am a theatre design student, which means I am often knee-deep in creative assignments and performance designs, especially during the school year.
Last winter I happened to be in an art supply store, and spotted a shelf of colourful little bottles labeled "Sock Stop". It's a German liquid latex product designed to be applied to the bottoms of socks or slippers to give them extra grip. I didn't have an immediate use for it, but thought it might come in useful someday and bought a bottle on impulse. It now seems to be fairly widely available, and I've seen it since then at several local yarn shops.
Sweet Paprika Designs offers high-quality materials for knitters and crocheters, with a focus on locally-sourced and sustainable products. Co-owners (and sisters) Debbie and Elizabeth create their own hand-dyed yarns, knitting kits and patterns in their Montreal dye studio and organize knitting and dyeing events in the community.
