• 2025 - Cats - Knitting - Shawl

    2025-8 Maple Leaf Wrap

    June 18, 2025 - By 

    In February our neighbours to the south started a trade war with us, so early March brought a renewed sense of Canadian pride, we started buying only Canadian products, or from our friendlier trade partners. It also inspired us to craft with Canadian pride. Knit Me is a Canadian company that offers yarn subscription boxes which I had previously been gifted, they also sell patterns individually. One of them is the Maple Leaf Wrap, if you look closely you can see the maple leaves.

    I had a skein and a bit of the yarn recommended for this pattern, leftover from knitting a sweater a couple years ago, So I decided to wind it up and make a “just because” gift for my BFF. Ancient Arts Revival Fingering is an environmentally conscious yarn made from recycled and reclaimed fibers from the carding and milling process, it’s 49% Wool, 34% Mohair, 11% Nylon, 4% Acrylic, 2% Silk.

    The pattern starts with a garter tab, then you work a 23 row lace pattern with increases on each end, so you do have to pay attention to your row count. There are also a few special stitches to sort out, but the pattern is well written and the special stitches have good descriptions.

    Overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and Sheila liked it.

    8 Maple Leaf Wrap

    Pattern: Maple Leaf Wrap by Knit Me

    Craft: knit

    Made for: Sheila

    Needle: 3.25 mm

    Yarn: Ancient Arts Revival

    Colourway: Beaujolais Nouveau 115 grams total

    Notes: 5 repeats plus 5 rows = 409 sts 

  • 2025 - Knitting - Socks

    2025-1 Smooth Operator Socks

    June 4, 2025 - By 

    I never make New Year’s resolutions, but in 2009, after crocheting for about 15 years, I made a New Year’s resolution to learn how to knit. So in January of that year I searched the internet for resources and came across a website called Ravelry and signed up! For many years I really enjoyed their database of patterns and yarns, but what I really liked was their project section where I could keep track of everything I made, the pattern, yarn, needle and hook sizes, and notes for when I inevitably made changes. I often went back to look at completed projects when I was making a similar item, and I referenced other makers notes on their project pages. In the summer of 2020 they updated their website, which left me soured on them for various reasons. I decided it was time to step away and keep track of my projects another way. I still search their database occasionally when I’m looking for pattern inspiration, but I’m not active on it as a user anymore unless it’s required for a designers test knit.

    What I ended up doing was just keeping a word document for each year stored on my Google drive, I could access it anywhere and make updates on the fly, functionally it works very well for me, but it’s a private document, so other crafters can’t see it and get help from the notes or ideas to work on their own projects like they could do on Ravelry, and it’s not as easily searchable. In the last few years I’ve also not been enjoying social media as much, my Facebook and Instagram feeds are often just filled with ads and it wasn’t a space I enjoyed sharing my projects anymore. So the idea of writing another blog, just about my craft projects was born.

    So here’s what a project in my word document looks like, I’ll post each one as a separate blog post. At some point I’ll go back and share previous years projects, but I’m going to start with 2025. Eventually I hope it will make searching easier by using the categories and post tags.

    1 Smooth Operator Socks

    Pattern: Smooth Operator Socks by Susan B. Anderson

    Made for: Keely

    Craft: knitting

    Needle: 2.25 mm

    Yarn: Pro Lana Golden Fjord Socks

    Colourway: 189 Burgundy

    Notes: Yarn was gifted to me by Jeanette for Christmas. Start cast on for cuff with final solid section of burgundy. 40” length of yarn for long tail cast on.

    Knit ribbing for 1 ½”

    Knit leg for 6”, until 4 rows of solid light pink.

    Knit foot for 5 ¼” past waste yarn (last round of burgundy section.)

  • 2025 - Cats - Crochet - Introduction - Knitting

    2025, ugh…

    June 3, 2025 - By 

    As my tagline says, I’m just a girl, holding an existential crisis at bay, the best way I know how. Knitting and crocheting my way through my yarn stash, usually with a cat on my lap.

    Trixie the mackeral tabby cat on a crocheted blanket on my lap with a partially knit shawl

    The last five years have been hard, we have lived through a global pandemic, we’re seeing a rise in fascism, social media has turned into a dumpster fire of hate and conspiracy theories, and now measles is on the rise, measles? The childhood disease with a safe and effective vaccine? Yeah that one. On a personal note, all my kids have moved out and I’m stumbling my way into menopause, with all the joyful symptoms that entails. Thank you to the pharmaceutical industry, and a family doctor who listens to me, which is a minor miracle since I live in Alberta and our health care system is collapsing. Yeah it’s been a hard few years.

    Playing with yarn, and snuggling my cats really is my therapy. This year I wanted to create a positive space to share my projects, a home on the internet free of everything mentioned above. It’s taken me a few months to get it going, but I think it’s time to start writing and posting photos. Let’s start with a photo of Trixie on my lap, because it brings me joy.