What's On for Knitting - April

April seems to be a busy month for knitting events.  Here are three events that I am going to take part in.

April 9 - Durham Spring Yarn Crawl - you need to be on Ravelry to see this, it's part of the Durham Region Knit & Crochet & Fibre group.  But for those of you who want to take part, the following shops are participating:  Never Enough Wool (Port Perry); On the Lamb (Uxbridge); Soper Creek Yarns (Bowmanville); Fergusons (Myrtle Station) and The Kniterary (Whitby).  From what I have heard, you can get discounts at some of the stores.  It will be nice to get out and about.  My two sisters, Joan and Kath are hopefully going to do this with me.

April  15-16 - Creativ Festival - costs $15.00 to get in.  Look at their website because there are lots of mini courses to take for free.  This event is being held at the International Centre in Mississauga. I am going on the Friday with my sister, Joan.

April 30/May 1 - Knitters Frolic - costs $5.00 to get in, plus there are classes to sign up for (but at a cost).  This event is held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.  I don't know if anyone is going with me but I will go on my own.

Soper Creek Knitting Contest

I went and voted today at Soper Creek Yarn.  There are a lot of good entries so please go and vote.  Mine is the rat race scarf.  I took a few pictures while I was there.  It was very sunny so the pictures aren't that great.

Sisters

It is so nice to have all my sisters close by.  I saw Joan on Saturday for a cup of tea and showing her my new hairdo.  Detta and I went to Church on Sunday but we were very early so dropped by Kath's house first.  It was nice to have a chat together before Church.  Then today I was working at Anne's for the morning so we popped out and she treated me to breakfast.  I consider myself very lucky to have such nice and unique relationships with all my sisters.

New Dos

I forgot to mention Detta and I both had our hair done on Saturday.  I have gone for a really short style where as Detta has added red to hers.  That girl is starting to cost a lot for hair and she looks so grown up!!!!!  We stopped by Joan's to show her our new dos

Soper Creek Entries

On the way home from church today, Detta and I stopped by Soper Creek Yarn to check out the entries for the contest.  We did take some photos.  The entries all look really good.  If you are going by, mine is the mouse scarf or rather rats - Rat Race.

This afternoon, Donovan, Hugh and I headed out to Rotary Park.  We had a very nice walk along the beach.  The stones have all disappeared and it is very sandy now.  There is still lots of drift wood everywhere.  The ice formations on the driftwood was amazing.  I love the ice mushrooms.

Lord of the Dance

Hugh took me to see Lord of the Dance at the GM Centre in Oshawa.  It was very good, we both enjoyed ourselves.  I would still like to see the River dance show if it every was on again.  I have never been to the GM Centre before, it is quite big.  The only down side was that it was very cold.  But I only found out half way through the show, that the ice was still in the rink!  I should have brought a sweater.

Funny enough, a co-worker of mine mentioned she was going also and then when Hugh and I were seated, she was sitting about 6 seats away from us! 

There are no pictures yet of the entries for the Soper Creek Yarn contest.  I will put up a link as soon as they are posted.  Now I need to start a new project.  I have some lovely yarns that I have purchased for myself.  I keep starting a project but then I end up not liking it and ripping it.  I will have to decide on something.  I do have a number of projects to finish: the baby blanket (just sewing in the ends), the red mittens (needs the kitchner stitch done to the top) and my sister's mittens (I knit them for Christmas 2009 and never got around to sewing the ends in!).  Also my cousin's daughter just had a second baby girl so I need to do something and I know someone else having a baby boy in a month.

Knitting

It has been so long since I have updated this blog.  I am now working two part-time jobs and am extremely busy.  But my knitting has not taken a back seat.  I have been knitting like crazy as usual.  I just finished a scarf for the Soper Creek knitting contest.  We had to only use the colours provided in the package.  It took me ages to decide but finally I did the pattern called Rat Race by Morehouse Farms.  The darkest colour is actually purple though it looks black in this picture.  It was fun to knit and took about 4-6 hours in total.

Spotted Touch-Me Not

Today, Hugh and I wanted to have a look down the east side of Lynde Shores Conservation Area.  We had been told by friends, that when walking their dog, they saw a snake and a turtle.  So we set off today to see what we could find.  The children were most relecutant to come out with us.  The path was a paved one, we were not expecting it to be so developed.  There seemed to be no access to Lynde Shores from the east side, in fact most of it was fenced off.  We did see a frog or toad jump through the grass but we were unable to catch it.  We think it was a Leopard frog

We walked along and down to the lake by the Ontario Shores Hospital.  There are very large rectangular cement blocks for stopping shore erosion and big boulders.  The boys had a great time walking along.  They dragged Hugh out to see a cave they found.

We found a spot with some picnic tables.  I spotted this little flower growing amongst these boulders.  On closer inspection I realised it was an orchid.  It was very tiny and very orange.  I did pick one flower so that I could look it up in my book when I came home.  Of course after I found it in my wild flower book, it said to never pick!  Well now I know.

It is called a Spotted Touch-Me Not or the Orange Jewelweed.  The latin name is Impatiens capensis.  This plant is found near poison ivy and the juice from it's crushed stems can soothe the itching.  We didn't find much else, at least not today. Note: I didn't take these pictures, I will have to go back during the week to get some pictures

The Latest

Well everyone is home from camp.  Detta would have liked to stay longer, maybe next year.  Miles and Donovan are glad to be home.  Miles has gone xbox mad and Donovan has started playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii.  Detta has spent lots of time watching movies off YouTube.  Two weeks with no tv or electronic games can be an eternity. 

Today Miles and Detta both went to Wonderland with different friends.  I am glad they were able to go.  That is one place I am not really interested in going especially with my sore feet.  Speaking of which, I went to the doctor today and explained my foot/heel pain issue.  One of my sisters told me about plantar fasciitis which I had never heard of.  It seems she was suffering from this also, only she knew what it was.  I have been suffering from this heel pain on and off (more on) for about 6 years.  I had put it down to the cermanic tiles in the house we moved to and being overweight.  Anyways I had my feet xray'd today to check for heel spurs and I have a referral for a foot doctor.  Maybe the pain will be over soon.

I have been knitting some socks but with all this heat I just haven't had the energy.  But I did sign up for a community yard sale with Creative Yarns Inc.  I have sorted through loads of yarn.  I have been very ruthless, I just can't keep all this yarn.  I have found two beautiful cotton sweators that I knit when I was much smaller.  One of them just needs sewn up and the other only needs an edge knit and then sewn up.  Tomorrow, I am going to sort patterns and books that I no longer need.  The community Yard Sale is this Saturday, July 24th from 8:30am to 1:00pm.  It is at 269 Ellesmere Rd or here is Google Map Link.  10% of everything I sell will go to the Cancer Society of Canada.

Frogs!! And Toads

This is from last week, Donovan and his sister caught a Leopard Frog down at the pond in the park.  He was very excited about the frog.  We took the frog back to the pond later that day.  Here are a couple of pictures.

The children are off to camp for two weeks.  The first thing Donovan did was check the little mud pond for frogs.  He found some!!  I was informed that they are Green frogs.












I shouldn't forget the toad that hopped into the church picnic on last weekend of June.  It was an American Toad.  We were just finishing the watermelon eating contest when the toad hopped into our midst.  I really think it made Donovan's day.