Adventures in Knitting

It's here! My Cyber Monday Sale Knitpicks.com order! I'm a little excited.

I ordered on Cyber Monday (that was November 26) and my box of goodies arrived at its final destination on the 30th (that was last Friday). I didn't dash out to the depot to get it as we are waiting on another package. Not yarn, but important nonetheless.

Yesterday (Monday...a whole WEEK after I ordered!) my mom stopped by to visit (very uncharacteristic of her) and during our conversation, I learned she was headed to the UPS depot where my box of yarny goodness was languishing. So, details in hand, off she went to pick up both her packages and mine.

Hours and hours later, mom arrived at my knit night to deliver my Knitpicks box. It seems that most of northern New York State and a everyone in south eastern Ontario has had packages shipped to this particular UPS depot. The lineup to get your package is two hours long. People were wrapped around the building into the parking lot. In the rain. And according to the UPS employee, the lineup looks the same at 7am as it does at 10am as it does at 4pm. Mom, with my sister, waited in this two hour long lineup for four packages. They were damp and hungry when they got back.

At knit night is the best time to open a big box of awesome. Yarn was passed around the table and squished and fawned over. I may have converted a new knitter or two in the process. We'll see.

Just in case you're interested (and even if you're not) here's what I got. (Pretend it's an Eye Spy game...)

• Set of Sunstruck Interchangeable needles for The Girl Child for Christmas
• 3 Harmony (purple!!) circular needles so I can finally get going on my Rams & Yowes
• Chroma Fingering in Grey and Midwinter for Deep In The Woods mittens
• 2 Stroll Tonal in Thunderhead (grey) which will be 2 pair of socks at some point
• 1 special buy Stonewashed (also Stroll tonal)
• 2 Shimmer Lace in the colour 'Spice' which will hopefully be Holden Shawlettes by the 24th
• 7 Shadow Lace in Garnet Heather with a skein of Shimmer in 'Sherry' for the Classic Lines Cardigan. For me. For Christmas. So I can't play with it yet.

I'm all motivated to knit. First up is the Holden Shawlette (more like a scarf). Mr. A and I wound the first ball of Shimmer lace last night and as I cast on, I realized I've never knit a triangle lace thing yet. I hope it works out...

After the Christmas knitting will be Rams & Yowes and a pair of the grey socks for The Girl Child once she chooses a pattern. The mittens and my socks will wait.

There is talk of a spring Knitpicks sale on the Ravelry forums. Why did I not know of this? A sale is a very motivating force. I will hope to knit up a good portion of this newly arrived box by spring. I might definitely will need sock yarn by the spring...don't you think?

♥Mrs. A.

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Street Faire Success!

After a month of preparations, our Street Faire experience was a success. (Please excuse my shoddy photography skills - it was busy and I was a little stressed. Really, the table looked lovely.) We sold glitter snowflakes, puzzle piece gingerbread men and knitted gnomes.

I'm quite pleased with how all our ornaments turned out. I think the kids were happy that all the work we did resulted in a nice table with lots of sales. Our knitted gnomes were $2 each and the other ornaments were $1 each. The kids insisted on this pricing as I was wanted to charge $.50 for the snowflakes and gingerbread men. It turns out that this pricing strategy was perfect. I'm glad I listened to the kids.

We sold cider for $.50 a cup. The Boy Child was in charge of this and he did a really good job. Before the sale, the class in the hall ran late cutting severely into set-up time for the vendors. The Boy had to do all the prep and set-up for cider on his own as The Girl Child and I were frantically busy with getting the table ready.

We had a little helper all day. She is very cute and very fond of my big kids. She was responsible for hanging all the ornaments and helping with pouring the cider.

As far as the business end of things went, we spent a little over $30 in supplies. Our profit was a little over $40 after we covered our supply cost. We sold about $80 worth of ornaments and cider. There was a little deal-making and bartering that went on which accounts for our difference.

 

Sales were good, but I prepared many ornaments and now have all that I need as gift toppers and for family. Amazingly, that means I planned ahead and got a Christmas project out of the way in November. I love it when I surprise myself with being organized!

 

♥Mrs. A.

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Geology 101

 Just a quick blog today to share some pictures from our program yesterday. The kids were quite excited to be on campus. And a busy day on campus it was. Students everywhere. It was a grey cold day and I have to wonder about all those students' well-being attending a university during the coldest, greyest days of the year surrounded by big grey buildings...

Miller Hall houses the School of Geology, obviously. The kids were very entertained to see classes in action. Upstairs (why, yes, we did explore and poke around before our class...) the kids saw students working independently in large empty classrooms, profs meeting with students and some really old display cases with rocks in them. Miller Hall also houses a very nice museum (including an interactive room complete with sandbox) where we could see lots of rocks; many interesting and unique pieces from our area.

The curator of Miller Museum delivered two programs. The first was a discussion and overview of geology, "An interactive overview of rocks, minerals, fossils and Earth processes illustrated with many touch samples (including a meteorite, a dinosaur bone, examples of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and mineral ores)".


Lapis Lazuli in its natural habitat.

Coral Fossil

Fossilized Shells shown during discussion of early life on earth

Sample of Carbonized Leaves

Lots of hands on time.

A specimen from Canada's fossil forest 1000km above the treeline in NWT. Nothing like fossilized (not petrified!) wood in Canada's north to teach us about Continental drift.

  

Our second talk was titled The Earth Through Time. "While seated along an 8 meter-long geological time scale graphic, students hear a 50 minute lecture about the major changes in the Earth's geosphere, atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere since its formation. The talk is illustrated with rocks and fossils spanning the entire 4.6 billion years of Earth history including meteorites, the oldest known terrestrial rocks, the appearance of life and its progression from exclusively single-celled organisms in the beginning to the complex life of the present day." The Curator pulled out some rare samples that were very impressive.

Impressive fossil of a lizard like creature from 250+ million years ago.

Also on the camera were a collection of pictures my kids are becoming known for. Picture after picture of samples of rocks in cases. I have a catalogue of the Gems exhibit at ROM in Toronto as well as a good record of the Smithsonian's rock collection in Washington. I can see us going back to Miller Hall just to hang out when we are in the city.

The Museum is a wonderful mix of 1930's original display cases and more modern methods of imaging and display.








A recently donated collection.








The Boy Child's favourite.







♥Mrs. A.

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