She Learned to Knit!

My initial title for this post was going to start out "I Taught Her......." but not only was that full of hubris and disingenuous, it was just plain untrue.
The big story here is not how - or even if I taught her - it's what this delightful child picked up on her own with precocious fine-motor skills and a serious intent. She can already write her name in neat cursive; I knew knitting would  be a welcome challenge and a skill she would quickly pick up.

I set her up with some adorable little children's knitting needles, by Pony. They are in two different colours and they have adorable little kitty faces on the ends. We started out with a light worsted yarn, but hit pay dirt when I switched her over to a thicker, regular worsted-weight cotton. She's now working on her first project: a coffee-cup sleeve for her dad.

It's a beautiful day at the cottage.

I know it's been a while since I did anything with this blog.
April, you say? I don't have much in the way of an excuse.

I will say that seeing my blog name on someone else's (a much better writer) bloglist compelled me to get back here and offer up some lagniappes for you. I'm hoping to work on this blog a little and design some separate pages for my recipes and crafts.

If you have been reading this, thanks so much. And thank you to Amy from Read My Blog. She's the one who so kindly added me to her blog roll. Her blog is fantastic and she has some great bloggers on her list, so I’m honoured. Amy’s just returned from Cuba so please go to her blog and check out her entries on her trip of a lifetime. And Amy - thanks again for the encouragement!

It's a great day at the cottage. It may be a little hazy and slightly humid, but it's still a beautiful day.

The biggest thing on my vastly roomy plate is planning a gender-reveal party for a family member. It seems to be of growing importance in the baby-celebrating repertoire these days. It's a small celebration and therefore, easy to go all-out without too much bother. My current projects are a blue and pink ribbon wreath and labels for all of the drinks, like "Snips'n'Snails Ale" and 'Sugar'n'Spice on Ice"  for the Jones' Soda Fufu Berry and Blue Bubblegum.

Don't forget to swatch, swatch, swatch!

Mom's here for the summer.

I've been knitting away like crazy - trying to get my little dresses together but instead of concentrating on finishing them, I've only been knitting more tops! I've learned a few tricks over the past few weeks.
The first is: you (like this is the first time you've read it here...) must swatch! I even launder the swatches according to fiber instructions so I know exactly what I will end up with when I have my finished garment.
This is what I do: cast on the number of stitches in your gauge plus eight. Knit first four rows, then knit 4 sts, pattern until last four sts, then knit until you have the number of rows in your pattern (not counting the first four knit rows.) The garter-stitch border keeps your swatch nice and flat so you can keep track of your progress. When I have finished, I launder and block the swatch and then put a tag on it with name of the yarn and gauge and needle sizes. Before I do that however, I tie knots in the end of yarn that I started with. FE. for size five needles, tie five knots in your yarn ends.
Don't let summer stop you from knitting! There are tons of small projects that you can work on with out haivng to feel the heavy weight of knitting in your lap! I'm going to try to knit and crochet floweres!
Thanks for reading.
Rosie