There's a storm a-brewin'

Dear friends,

It's been quite the hectic day here. I got an early morning call for a substitute day (yay!) and spent the day teaching Art at my favourite school. Work wise, it was a great day. However, there is a storm brewing in the Atlantic ocean and it has most of us here in on the peninsula very shaken up.

In just a few short hours Hurricane Leslie is expected to hit us directly. Packing wind of 120 km/h and a warning of 70-100mm of rain, things will not be pretty in my hometown for the next day or two.

Hurricanes don't hit here often. By the time they reach this little neck of the woods (the northern most shores of the Atlantic ocean), hurricanes have normally downgraded to Tropical storms or tropical depressions and their wind and rain is nothing unlike what we see every few weeks. But in 2010, Hurricane Igor struck the peninsula with so much force that it washed out the main roads here in 5 different places, stranding us from the rest of the island of Newfoundland. 129mm of rain fell in 8 hours and while some families struggled to bail out their homes, some struggled to reach each other.

[NOTE: There is some foul language in this video. I post it only to highlight how the hurricane affected the area of Newfoundland where I live.]

No one expected Igor. No one was prepared. The peninsula ran out of gasoline and we soon ran out of certain provisions such as milk. With one road connecting us to the rest of the island, it was impossible to get trucks here with food. A few days after the hurricane, the government was forced to send a boat with provisions to provide us with the goods we needed until the highway could be fixed.

An image of the dam overflowing in my grandmother's community of Lawn, Newfoundland in Sept. 2010. Photo found on thecoaster.ca

And this all could happen again tomorrow. Needless to say, I'm a little stressed out.

I just got home from the grocery store and it was complete madness. All the water was completely sold out. With better warning of what is coming, everyone is better prepared this time. But the panic is new.

As I drove home from the store, the gas station I passed was full, with a line of cars backed up down the street, hoping to get gas before Leslie hit. I am very thankful I had a full tank already.

And now I'm getting ready to prepare the house. With winds in excess of 120km/h the big worry with this storm is not washed out roads, but falling trees and flying debris, so we need to get everything out of the garden and off the deck before the wind picks up. Losing power is also a serious worry. Luckily my sister (who has recently moved home) has emergency preparedness training so she has everything under control. The only thing we are worried about in this household now is the force of mother nature.

So, if you're reading this, please think positive thoughts for us here tonight. We may not have it as bad as we did two years ago, but any good thoughts can't hurt.

I'll post again soon and let you know how we all fair, given that I have power and internet access.

Longing for London

Friends,

I'm ridiculously homesick today. I'm sitting in front of my computer trying to do something productive, but all I can think about is London. Sure, my "real" home is right here in Newfoundland, but god, I left a piece of me in London when I left.

For those of you that are just tuning in, or simply have no idea about my life pre-blog, I used to live in London, England. The big metropolis, the land of Big Ben and Harry Potter, of tea and crumpets. Yeah, I called that place home for a brief period of my life. 

It all started when a friend, who was sick of hearing me whine about how much I missed studying in England, told me to man up and do it. Move there he told me. So I did. It was the most impulsive thing I ever did with my life, but it was the best. I arrived at Heathrow with nothing but the obscenely large suitcase I could barely drag and a promise of teaching work in the city. I lived in a glorified shoe box deep in the city centre and I mastered the Underground. I would spend my free time sipping an Americano at a coffee shop or reading a book while picnicking in Regent's Park. I had a library card for The British Library (my all-time most prized possession) and lived only a few blocks from the British Museum. I had conversations with A.S. Byatt about the state of the British education system and was hit on by Martin Amis. I spent an entire month of my life in a pub with Canadian teaching friends watching the World Cup. I spent my 25th birthday at a little pub in Dublin. I even got to work at a Bed & Breakfast in the Scottish highlands. 

These were some of the greatest experiences of my entire life and now I'm missing the place deeply. So, in celebration of all things British, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite English things with you.

(From left to right) Wading in the fountains in Trafalgar Square, the food stalls at Camden Market, Foyles Bookstore (my favourite bookstore of all time), and Yumchaa Tea Shop in Soho.

I can't wait to go back. Even just for a week. 

Where would you like to revisit if you had the chance?

Addicted to organizing

Friends,

Do you like organizing and planning? If so, we'll get along just fine. If not, let me plan for you! Since I've started posting daily here on the blog, it's been a great excuse to print off some adorable printable blog planning sheets to keep myself on task. I found these beauties (see picture below) on Pinterest. Really, what did I do for hours of my day before Pinterest? If you'd like to have some of these wonderful printables for your very own, look no further!

1. Colorful 2012 calendar from TomKat Studios (here)
2. Days of Fun blank calendars (here) Note: most of this .pdf is meant for primary aged children, but the weekly calendar is quite cute and ageless!
3. Make Time for Fun printable calendar set from The English Pea (here)
4. Sunday planning - a collection of weekly planner, meal planners, blog planners etc. (here)
5. I Heart My Blog planner by The Flourishing Abode (here)

Enjoy!

Friday finds

The best new Ravelry patterns (Aug. 31st - Sept. 7th)

Every Friday I will be highlighting my favourite new patterns that pop up around the web. As a knitter, electronic patterns from Ravelry and Etsy have let me create beautiful knit-wear that I normally wouldn't be able to make in a bookstore-less town. I might not have a bookstore at my disposal, but I have a printer! So all the patterns I will include in this weekly feature will be downloadable (for free or a fee according to the designer) from one of the great knitting pattern sites on the web.

I hope you enjoy :-)

1. Driftwood by Julie Hoover (find it here). This pattern is featured in the Brooklyn Tweed fall look book. If you know of Brooklyn Tweed, you'll know how popular this pattern will become.

2. Kerfuffle Cowl by Michele Bernstein (find it here). The colorwork on this cowl looks beautiful!

3. Seed Stitch Winter Cowl by Ellie Fitzpatrick (find it here and here). It looks so warm and cozy.

4. Gelsomina Aran by Veronik Avery (find it here). Another gem from the BT Fall look book. My personal favourite.

Which pattern is your favourite? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Stay tuned to next week's picks!

My knitting playlist

Friends,

Everyone has a different knitting routine. A friend of mine loves to sit on her couch and knit in solitude. Another can't knit unless she's on her porch in the fresh air. But me? I'm not the person that can sit silently and knit. My mind is too active and for some odd reason I feel very insecure about that. So something needs to be happening in the background to keep my mind occupied.

I have two different routines, or ideal situations, which I love to knit in. Both involve sitting on my couch, with my coffee on the end table and normally with the TV on. I'm addicted to television shows. You name a series, I've seen it at least once. What else am I going to do while I'm knitting?

But recently, during a long summer of road trips and mindless driving, I've become very inspired by music. There are certain bands or artists I'll listen to and instantly want to pick up my needles to knit. I'll throw on my earphones and I'm calmed.

So if you're the kind of knitter that needs or simply enjoys listening to good music while you're in the act, I thought I'd share my favourite knitting music with you.

1. Ben Howard - Every Kingdom (UK)
2. Bon Iver - Bon Iver (US) 
3. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues (US)
4. Matthew and the Atlas - To the North (UK)
5. Daughter - The Wild Youth EP (UK) check out the song "Youth
6. James Vincent McMorrow - Early in the Morning (IRL)
7. Marcus Foster - Tumble Down and Nameless Path (UK)
8. The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You (US)
9. Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again (UK)
10. Boy & Bear - Moonfire (AUS)
11. The Head and the Heart - The Head and the Heart (US)
12. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin and Infinite Arms (US)

SONGZA!

I'm also crazy about this new radio station type website/OS app called Songza. They have all kinds of playlists you can listen to that are catered to your mood or the genre of music you'd like to listen to. My two new favourite lists are Harvest Moon and Communion Records (a playlist of all the artists on Ben Lovett's record label -- yes, the guy from Mumford & Sons). 

What music do you listen to while you knit? Or even if you don't knit, what's your new favourite album? I'd love to hear what everyone is listening to!

Back to school

Friends,

Tomorrow I go back to school. It's the first day back for students here in the province and I'm lucky enough to be filling in for a teacher in the 4th grade. I haven't had a "first day" since I started teaching, so I'm quite excited.

The day will be filled with tiny children, smiles and new school supplies. There is nothing better than the first day of school.

In other news, I've been seeing a lot of great photos and links around the interwebs lately dealing with knitting, so I thought I'd try to do a weekly round up of these to share with you. This will be my first attempt.

• Born in the 70s or 80s? You'll most likely remember the original Nintendo game system. Supposedly they meant to start a knitting revolution with a electronic knitting device. Move over Duck Hunt gun, I want to knit with this! 
• This picture of the COOLEST BRO EVER has been circling twitter lately. I think we should be knitting buds. This also makes me want to move to a larger city again so I can be surrounded by knitters like him.

• A group of women in Alberta, Canada are knitting up replicas of female reproductive organs and sending them to Parliament in Ottawa in hopes to draw attention to a new anti-abortion motion. Read this article to learn more about Womb Swarm Parliament – Textile Artists United Against Motion M-312.

If you find any fun or interesting (or both!) articles about knitting in the social media sphere or the news, I'd love to hear about them so I can feature them next week. You can always email me at theruralknitter (at) gmail (dot) com.

Command central

1. This is where I work. It's been a dream of mine for years to have a white office with a beautiful, large white desk and recently that dream was realized. As a teacher, a great work space is a must and I think I accomplished that. I have space for my computer (I'm using an external monitor to run my macbook pro), a pen organizer, my planner and my iPad
2. No trip to Staples is ever complete without me spending loads of money on stationary. My most recent trip saw the purchase of this amazing Martha Stewart binder organizer which I'm using for my knitting patterns and blog planning. AND, there's an adorable picture of my sister and I at Peggy's Cove, NS where we were younger. (The picture frame is one of my favourite Dollarama finds for $1.)
3. My iPad. As a blogger, this gadget really comes in handy. I can use it as an extra computer screen or for photo editing. 

What do you think?

On my needles

I'm trying my hand at another Le Petit Artichaut. The yarn I'm using this time, Classic Elite's Wool Bam Boo in Peach, is much softer and the solid colour really lets the seed stitch pattern show.

I've been using this organizer all the time since I bought it a few weeks ago from Michael's craft store. It was meant to be used for scrapbooking, but I thought the pen holders on the left would be great for storing 6-8" dpns. And there is a handy zippered pouch in it too. It's an ideal spot for storing a circular needle or crochet hook!

Last but not least, I'm trying out an altered pattern for the Eyelet Slippers. The two pairs I've already made have started to stretch a little already, so I've tried to change the pattern to see if that will help. I've also attempt to make these slippers using double stranded worsted weight yarn. I'll post pictures of that soon. 

It's knitting season!

Friends,

I woke up this morning to a thermometer that read 7 degrees Celsius. For you American readers, that's extremely cold for September -- 44 degrees Fahrenheit, I believe. So while everyone mourns the passing of the first real summer Newfoundland has ever received (seriously! One day it was 37 degrees here with humidex -- our norm is 15-20 degrees), I am celebrating knitting season.

This is one of my favourite times of the year. I'm finishing projects that I can actually wear, I get to start work again as a teacher and my beloved sweaters come out of hibernation. There is nothing better to me than Fall.

So with the start of knitting season, I thought I'd share with you some of the projects I hope to tackle over the coming months. I'd love to see what you're creating too. Find me on Ravelry and we can share! I'm 'theruralknitter'.

From left to right

• The Marian Cowl by Jane Richmond
• Emma's Mittens by Minh Hoang
• Bunny Beanie by Noe Knit
• Paulie Cardigan by Isabell Kraemer
• Gwen Stacy's hat by Hailey Knits
• Orchids & Fairy Lights by tiny owl knits
• Hello New York Hat by Anna & Heidi Pickles
• Moss Stitch Bow Headband by Stefanie Fail
• Salt Water House Socks by Christine Mills
• Mug Cozy by Twisted Fibers
• Levenwick Cardigan by Gudrun Johnston
• Seamless Slippers by Jade Lee

New design and the future!

Folks, I want to thank you for sticking with me yesterday. If you visited the site, you most likely found it struggling with an identity issue. That's because I've decided to go with a new, more feminine and less cluttered look and feel for the blog. A huge thanks and round of applause goes to Kate over at 17th Avenue Design who has made this lovely template. I feel it really represents my own personal style and I couldn't be happier.

The new design overhaul also means that I'm getting more serious about the blog. I love writing and sharing various knitting ideas with you all, and I plan to do so more frequently. I'm thinking bigger and better things for The Rural Knitter -- guest posts, giveaways, tutorials, etc.

I plan on offering Sponsor packages to get involved with the knitting and blogging communities out there. It's such a great method of spreading the word and I can't wait to get involved. So look out for opportunities to advertise on my blog and vice versa.

I'd also love to increase my readership. That seems to be the whole idea behind blogging, eh? In light of that, I always subscribe to the "follow me, I'll follow you" policy. I absolutely love discovering new blogs and learning about others! So, feel free to follow the blog and we can become blogging friends.

Now, this is where you all come in. Are any of you readers avid bloggers? Do you have any tips on how to make a blog more 'visible'? As a newbie, I'd love to hear any advice you may have!

Thanks for checking out The Rural Knitter.

Eyelet Slippers

Pattern: Not-So-Tiny Slippers by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Wool of the Andes by Knit Picks in Beach Glass
Needles: US 10 dpns and then 16" US 10 addi click circular

I had the hardest time with these slippers. But it has been one of the most rewarding knitting projects I've taken on since I started knitting. Yes, they are slippers, but with all the mistakes I made while knitting these, I've learned so much. 

I wanted a nice pair of slippers. I searched high and low on Ravelry for a nice pattern and first settled on a quite old fashion style of slippers that reminded me of my grandmother, Evelyn. They were quite similar to the ones she had lying around her house, but they were not very pleasant on the eyes. They kept my feet warm, but I couldn't get the sizing right. I kept looking and found this pattern and fell in love with the design. These were slippers I knew I would be proud to wear and knit for others, so it was a no-brainer to buy it. 

Pulling out my bulky weight yarn and dpns, I set to work. The first slipper flew off my needles. It fit very well but there was something not right about the right side of the slipper. There were small holes along the right side right before I started the purled edge for the sole. I was quite perplexed. I followed the pattern and knit the wraps as indicated, but I still had holes. Seeing I was making these for myself, I decided to live with it. But when I went to make the second slipper, I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to iron out the kinks and find out what went wrong.

See the two pesky holes there? They are quite noticeable, eh?

On the second slipper, it took quite a long time to get to the hole issue because I had to frog back to the i-cord edging TWICE. The first time I misread the initial set up row and came out with a lopsided slipper. The second time, I miscounted on the eyelet row and they ended up closer to the left side than the pattern called for. I learned these lesson and started again. 

On my third try, everything went much better. No lopsidedness and my eyelets were centered. But I still faced my trouble with wraps and turns. I knew that the method I learned wasn't doing the job for this project, so before I started the wraps and turns for this slipper I did some research. I read almost every project note on Ravelry and no one seemed to be having this problem. I knew I was wrapping properly, so it had to be an issue with how I was knitting the wraps after the fact. And then I came across Cat Bordhi's youtube video on concealing wraps. This video completely saved my project. While my new knitted wraps aren't entirely 'concealed', they certainly don't leave gaps anymore. SUCCESS!

No more holes! Thanks, Cat Bordhi.

And when I finished the project, I ended up with these beauties. They are super comfortable and great to take with me on trips to my Nan's house. I'll definitely end up wearing these out.

Tourist for a day

I've been back from Nova Scotia for a day and I finally have a moment to sit down and share the pictures I took while visiting the areas of Mahone Bay and Lunenburg in Nova Scotia. 

I grew up in Nova Scotia for most of my childhood so these areas have been a place of fond memory for me. When relatives would visit my family as a kid, we'd always take them to Lunenburg to see the Bluenose and the Fisheries Museum. And almost always, we eat ice cream on the wharf and got it all over ourselves. Not much changed when I visited Lunenburg a few days ago (I even had an ice cream incident), except I was the tourist this time. 

My first request was to visit Mahone Bay, however. This town... well, there isn't enough words in the English language to describe how much I love it. It's the Stars Hollow I can realistically live in at some point. Some many beautiful little shops, breathtaking views and wonderfully nice people. If I could get a teaching job in that area, you would never find a happier person. Or knitter for that matter. 

                  

Mahone Bay is home to one of the nicest yarn shops I've ever visited, Have A Yarn. It's stocked with the best brands of yarn and the best notions and tools all in one place. The staff was also very kind and helpful with the questions I asked. I felt very comfortable there. Sometimes in yarn shops I'm stopped right away with questions by the staff and I'm the only one in the shop, so I feel watched the whole time I'm there. Sure, yarn shops are not the most populated of stores, but I like feeling a certain level of comfort while I take in all the colours and textures of the yarn. I have a process and Have A Yarn was a great in letting me get on with it. If only I could live in Mahone Bay. I'd never leave.

What I wouldn't give to knit in those chairs!

Lunenburg Wharf, over looking the Theresa E. Connor and the Fisheries Museum

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Lunenburg Academy

One of the cutest gift shops in Lunenburg. They sell handmade prints, jewelry, stationary and more. AND, the majority of their products are made locally!

Yarns of Nova Scotia

I'm on my second vacation of summer holidays and I'm having a grand time. This is the 2nd time I've visited Halifax, NS this year and as a knitter, it's always a treat. Halifax and the surrounding area is home to three lovely yarn stores and I use my trip to stock up on yarns that I wouldn't normally be able to get my hands on at home in Newfoundland. So far I've splurged on enough yarn for the Pomme de Pin cardigan and two skeins of fingering weight yarn for more Petit Artichaut boleros for friends. I've also found the cutest embroidered project bag with sheep on it. Much better than using a ziplock bag!

I bought this and the peach yarn at a new yarn store in Dartmouth called Dartmouth Yarns. It's such a quaint shop with a good selection of yarn, needles and notions. If I hadn't spent so much at LK Yarns yesterday, I certainly would have bought more. And did I mention that it's on the street next to my favourite coffee shop, Two If By Sea Cafe? I need to move to this area ASAP!

Tomorrow it's off to Lunenburg and Mahone Bay to buy some more yarn. Can this vacation get any better?

Posted with Blogsy

Le Petit Artichaut

It's that time of my life when friends and family start having babies. While it makes me feel old (and way behind everyone else), it's a wonderful excuse to knit all the adorable baby clothes I have queued up in my Ravelry favourites! I decided that the first project I would tackle would be the (Petit) Artichaut by Solen Couix-Loarer. 

I'm so happy with the result of this baby bolero. When I started the project, I was quite worried it wouldn't work out. First of all, getting Fingering weight yarn in rural Newfoundland is almost impossible. Luckily I found this Red Heart Stardust yarn in pink or I would have had to return to the drawing board. Also, I've never knit with fingering weight yarn and I didn't have a US 2.5 needle to work with (only a US 3 circular), so I had no idea if this would even resemble the sample pictures. But I stuck with it. 

I looked at a number of  YouTube videos to help me with the provisional cast-on, but it turns out they didn't help too much. I managed to do it, but when it came time to remove the waste yarn, the crocheted chain did not unravel easily. Instead, I had to reclaim the working yarn stitches and cut out the waste yarn through each stitch. A long process, but it worked out in the end.

Having read through almost all of the notes left on this project from other knitters on Ravelry, I have to agree with them on the fact that this pattern is unnecessarily difficult in certain areas. I assume it is a problem in the translation from French to English, but I had a hard time following the two row repeats. It would give you the pattern for the RS and WS rows then tell you to repeat this 5 times in total. Is that 5 times including the two you just knit, or in addition to those two rows? Did anyone else find that confusing? 

I also found myself taking a lot of notes while completing this project; mostly in an attempt to keep up with what row I was currently finishing and how many I had left to do. All the repeats made if difficult to keep track in my head. It also would have been nice to have the explanations of the LLIP and RLIP stitch embedded in the pattern and not at the end so I wouldn't need to keep flipping back to the last page to find it.

Overall, I was happy with the pattern however. There were a few frogged sections that I went back and redid but that's just because I was very intent on getting a great finished project that I could send to my cousin's wife who is having her baby in October. I'm fine with a few mistakes on something I will keep myself, but if I'm sending it somewhere, I like to have something I'm very proud of as a result. And I do!

If you find yourself knitting this project, here are a few notes. Good luck!

Notes: 

*Is the button hole necessary on this? Couldn't you just use the last four stitches on the left side border to start the 15.3 inch strap and pass it through the hole made on the right side seam?

*If you did include the button hole on the right side, couldn't you transfer the hole from the right seam to the left seam and start the second strap from there? It would take a lot less yarn and eliminate the strap needing to go all around the back of the garment. This would also eliminate any worry about the garment being too tight on the child. 

If you'd like to see more photos and details, head over to my Ravelry page

Canuck Socks.

Friends, I'm back at it! The needles are working away at new projects. Don't you just love summer vacation?!

I've been busy since finishing school in June and returning from my Disney vacation with my sister. My first finished project since picking up my needles again has been a lovely pair of socks; my first pair actually! I've been quite pleased with the result. I was quite apprehensive when I started the first one. All the terminology and the anatomy of the sock was quite confusing to me, but once I decided to just go with it, the whole process was painless. It was also a great project to take with me on the road. I spent half a week with a bunch of great girls at Pathfinders camp in Tilting, Newfoundland and ended up taking some really nice shots of my new socks while I was there.

For now, I'm working on a few more projects. A pair of comfy slipper socks, actual slippers and the Petit Artichault bolero for my friend Tracey's first baby! I'm pouring in most of my time to the bolero at the moment, however, as I'd love to finish it before going up to Halifax next week. More on that next time!