St. John's

I took a quick visit to St John's this past weekend. No trip to town would be complete without a visit to Cast On! Cast Off! 

It's a delightful little LYS ran by the equally delightful Katie. She has curated an amazing collection of indie dyed yarns. If you like to purchase souvenir yarn then I strongly urge you to drop by Katie's shop. 

I bought a sweaters quantity of fingering weight yarn to knit an all over lace pattered cardigan. The yarn is gorgeous! (More about that later in a future post) 

I think I may be crazy for even thinking about this sweater but it's one of those things .... Ya know? It's in my head and I can't stop thinking about it. That and the fact that my friend Jessie is knitting it and hers is turning out so beautifully. 

Katie is running a little KAL this month. It's Christmas ornaments. Knit one for yourself or for her shop. This little cutie is what I made for her. 

The pattern is called "snowball buddies" by Susan Claudino. There are other critters in the collection. I think I'll be making more of these little guys. They are so cute and so easy to make. 

While in town I got to meet up with my gorgeous niece. It was so nice to see her considering we missed her when we visited Newfoundland last month for Dads birthday. 

Here we are at the recently opened Jack Asters in downtown St John's. They have some interesting things on the menu including a side called "stacked jiggs" 

Fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will have some idea of what that is. I didn't try it myself but it sure looked interesting. Maybe next time. 

Travelling

When I moved to this town almost 25 years ago it took me a while to figure out something that people who are from here seem to inherently know. That is in order to survive the 'hardships' of living in a very isolated community you MUST find a way to leave it several times a year.

This may sound a bit extreme to those of you not living in an isolated town but trust me on this one. Now things have certainly improved in the past 25 years. The road through Quebec is so much better with large parts of it now being paved (yeah we have it good) and there is even a second road out of here through the southern part of Labrador. 

My first year in the 'Big Land' was an eye opener. For starters I was a new mother raising my daughter away from my own family. I didn't know many people here. I fell in love with Labrador though. I remember lying on my bed one day nursing my infant daughter when I happened to glance out of the bedroom window only to see the largest bird I had ever laid eyes on perch atop the telephone pole that was just feet from my house. It was a Golden eagle and I'd never seen anything like it!! 

But I became sad somehow. I thought maybe I had the baby blues but that wasn't it. My daughter was the center of my universe. I just missed my family. And I missed being able to go to shops.  I had become a little stir crazy living in such an isolated community. So I visited my mom and my sister. And I went shopping. I came back to Labrador refreshed and revitalized and ever since then I have gotten out of here at least twice a year. 

2014 has been a year like no other!  So far since January I have taken five (that's 5) trips out of Labrador. I've been to St John's three times. I've been to Halifax once. And I've been to Montreal once.  

Now the thing you need to understand about people living in isolated communities is that when given the opportunity to shop somewhere outside (of Labrador in this case) we will do so no matter if we don't need anything. Living in an isolated community almost makes one want to .... (It's such an ugly word) .... hoard.  There, I've said it. We try to anticipate future needs when we get to shop in larger centers because we know that if we buy something in St. John's will likely cost 40% more in Labrador. That's just the way it is. 

Now factor knitting into this equation. Do you see where I'm going with this? Everytime I travel, I look for the best yarn shops in town. And then I try to anticipate any future knitting I might do. This is trickier than it sounds.  My stepdaughters have two young boys each. But are they done making babies? Technically I could have another grandbaby before I travel again. 

Now I will admit that Internet shopping had made things SO. MUCH. EASIER.  But there is something very tactile about yarn shopping. Sure, the colours look great on my computer monitor but I have no way of know what the yarn feels like next to skin. 

Because of this, I tend to hoard yarn. When I get to physically go into a yarn shop and actually pick up and feel yarn and squish yarn and yes, even bury my nose in it and smell yarn, well, I tend to go a little nuts. 

The result is an awesome stash. And I think I have achieved SABLE (stash acquired beyond life expectancy)  

I took a picture of this little yarn/craft shop in St John's called Fiber Lilly. It's pretty cute. 

And this is the yarn that I bought on trip 2 to St John's at Cast On Cast Off. I bought yarn there on each of the three trips. Don't judge. 

This beauty I bought (among others) at Mouline in Montreal. 

And I didn't even take a photo of the stuff that I bought when I went to Halifax. I bought a bunch of yarn at Dartmouth Yarns and even some nice rustic yarns T the Halifax market. (I also bought a darning egg there too but that's another post). 

The sad thig is (or perhaps the great thing) that I'm not done travelling this year. Kev and I are planning a trip to Charlottetown, PEI and perhaps Niagra Falls, Ont - and I know there are yarb shops in both of those cities. We may need to build a piece on. 

I can't believe I've done this.

Well actually that's not true. I can believe it but it infuriates me so much. I am the worlds most careless person in terms of keeping track of my belongings. The worse. Ask my daughter about the time I was flying to Montreal to see her and managed to lose my photo ID during what was originally supposed to be a brief stopover in Halifax. Ask Kev how many times he has to help me find my car keys so that I won't be late for work. Ask my choir director about the time that I misplaced my music for two weeks and almost dropped out of choir because I was too embarrassed to tell her that I'd lost it - again. 

You get the picture? I'm a full blown scatter brain. This time though I've managed to bring this scattered brain into my knitting life. Up until now this facet of my life has not been immune to my scatter brain but no real big issues. This time I managed to lose a knitting book. 

And it's totally lost too. Because guess what? I'm pretty sure that I left it on a plane. Geeez. My record with airports - pretty soon I'm going to have to resort to tying anything I take into an airport and ultimately on a plane onto my body. 

The real upsetting this is that this was a brand new book. BRAND new. It pains me to even write it.  It's The Knitter Slipper Book by Katie Startzman. This wasn't an impulse buy either. I'd read several reviews (all good) about this book. And I loved the fact that the patterns in this book were for the whole family. It has everything from baby booties to full sized felted boots that are designed to be worn outside if you so desire and buy the proper soles. 

I bought this book when I was in St John's last week. Yes St John's. Again. The good thing about this trip is that I got to drop by what is my favorite yarn shop on the island Cast On. Cast Off! 

PI really felt like I had to support the local economy. I came away with these lovely things from Katie's cute little yarn shop. See that yellow?? It's called Not So Mellow.   I love it!! The name, the colour, the fiber, the sproinginess - everything about this yarn is just perfect. I had to cast on right away. 

They will become Laren Mitts  and the pattern is in KnitScene magazine.  

But let's get back to the whole losing the book thing. I knit when I fly. It helps keep me somewhat sane during the flight. I had finished one whole slipper while tending to Kevin during his hospital stay (nothing too serious) Knitting during hospital waits also keeps me sane.  The pattern is called Beaded Mocs and they were so cute!! I had the right yarn and needles with me even. And these slippers were felted. And did I mention beaded? The construction was oh so clever. I just loved knitting it.

We get back to Goose Bay last Saturday. We had a big detour into Gander and thankfully I had my knitting to keep me sane.  

Once we got settled in after our return I turned to my knitting like I usually do. And I cannot find the book of patterns anywhere.  I've searched and searched to no avail. It's gone. I think I must have left it in the seat pocket in front of me on the tiny Beech Aircraft that we flew from Gander to Goose Bay. 

I'm thinking I will just have to suck it up and buy a second book. Well, I did mention that I wanted to support the local economy. And I've got to knit a mate for this guy.