Category Archives: Out and about

10:52 am - April 9, 2012 - AngelaH

Easter write-through

My plans for Easter weekend ended up being all jumbled, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was going to work out at all. First, I was planning to go away with L to spend the weekend with his family. But, then I had to work on Friday and he had a meeting on Monday morning, so it didn’t seem worth it for me to drive all that way for a night. Then, my sister and her friend were going to come for the weekend, but due to her thesis work, Jenny decided to just come for Saturday. And just like that, my entire Sunday was wide open.

I haven’t had a whole day to just myself in a long time, and even though I didn’t think I wanted it, it turned out to be awesome. I baked. I knit (my Happy-Go-Lucky socks are done! More later). And, best of all, I went on a solo bike ride all around the fancy neighbourhoods north of our place (this was all the nicer after my mum called to tell me it snowed in Nova Scotia on Saturday night).

Man oh man, what a gorgeous day.

Trees are in blossom all over the place.

I love the way the brightness of new leaves pops. This may be my favourite colour.

See what I mean? Gorgeous.

Bicycle!

Yes yes. Sometimes you just need a day to yourself.

Category: Out and about Tags: bicycles, Easter, photos, socks, Spring, Toronto

10:53 am - April 8, 2012 - AngelaH

Reset

This is basically how last week felt (well, at least how the end of last week felt):

A hilarious (and, perhaps random?) Etsy error page. I love the frowning ball of yarn.

No, no, I did not completely destroy my sweater (this sort of mistake would imply that I was knitting arms, while I am still circling around the waist) or any other knitting, but you know that feeling you get when you’re knitting along and suddenly realize that somewhere along the line you dropped/picked up a stitch, or moved your chart one stitch to the left, or whatever, and you’re faced with having to tink back for (potentially) hours and redo it? And then you just wonder how you didn’t notice sooner? Well yeah. I had a weird week.

But today it’s Easter Sunday and I have the house to myself (well, myself and Ganymede) and there isn’t anywhere I have to go, or any timeline for the things I have to do, and I am excited. It’s a gorgeous day (high of 16) and I have all the ingredients for hot cross buns (I can just squeak them in under the Easter wire) and I have a sock to knit and a bicycle to take for a spin. I am officially resetting myself for the week ahead, and whatever you’re up to today I wish you something just as wonderful.

Happy Easter and Happy Sunday.

Category: Out and about Tags: Easter, hot cross buns, knitting, socks

10:47 am - April 5, 2012 - AngelaH

Cat walking

I have been a very bad blogger this week, but I blame that mostly on the fact that my knitting looks more or less that same as it did last week, we’ve been eating out, and Ganymede has taken up a lot of time. Basically, I’m having a cat dilemma, and it goes like this: should we take our indoor cat on walks? I know that to the untrained eye this sounds silly, but seriously, the weather has been pretty nice in Toronto lately and Ganymede spends a lot of her time in the windows. We also took her out a few times in the fall, but then L left her leash in a friend’s car and we didn’t get it back until last week, when I made the (potential) mistake of taking her on an unsolicited walk. It was a nice day, I didn’t have to work, and she seemed happy. When L got home he was disappointed to have missed it, so we took her out again. She loved it.

The next day, though, the meowing started. Ganymede mostly make throaty purr-meow sorts of noises, so a full-on meow was unusual in and of itself. That it lasted for several hours and turned into a plaintive, miserable meowal was more than I could take, so out we went again. That was Thursday. On Friday, L was holding the door open for a friend and Ganymede got bold; she ran out the door. Just like that. Out the door and into the hallway and up the stairs (we live in an apartment, albeit one in a small building, so our front door doesn’t lead directly to freedom, which is ironically a contributing factor to why she isn’t an outdoor cat to begin with, but I digress). He got her back in without too much trouble. On Saturday, the meowling was again too much for me to handle, so out we went. Sunday was miserable, so there was no way we were walking. On Monday I took her out for a half hour and it looked like this:

Ooh. A tree.

Wait, you're holding the leash too tightly for me to climb this. What the heck?

To get back at you, I will roll on the ground, getting as dirty as possible before you inevitably drag me back inside.

That walk was excellent. Lets do it again after my nap.

We got back in and she immediately started crying and scratching at the door. Since then, we haven’t taken her out once (we’ve both been busier and less at home than usual) and, against all odds, her crying has more or less gone away. I attribute at least some of this to the fact that I’ve been giving her a lot of extra playtime and cuddling. Maybe the meows were attention seeking? Anyway, we’re now wondering if taking her out is a cruel tease, and it’s easier for her to deal with being an indoor cat if she remains indoors. Still, as people who both grew up with outdoor cats, it’s tough.

Have you had to deal with this? What did you do? She looks really cute in her collar and leash and seems happy outside, but the indoor meowing is killing my nerves, and selfishly, it’s easier not to deal with it at all. Am I terrible?

Category: Out and about Tags: advice, cat photos, Ganymede

2:02 pm - March 19, 2012 - AngelaH

Happy Go Lucky

Wherever you are, I hope your weekend weather was a beautiful as the weather we enjoyed in Toronto. It’s March, remember, and it should be miserable, torturous weather throwing rain and slush and days no warmer than 5C at us; instead, though, we’ve been enjoying days of 15C, 16C, and 21C days! Deep down I know that this cannot last, and snow will likely fall once again before we’re fully free of winter, but right now I don’t care. This weather is incredible!

So, how do you knit in weather this delightful? My answer last year was not to. This year, my answer is take small projects outdoors. Thus, despite having just cast off one pair of socks, I cast on another. Meet the Happy-Go-Lucky boot socks from Sock Knitting Master Class, my current project go-to.

Happy Go Lucky, fresh out of the gate.

I’m knitting these in Cascade 220 Superwash Sport in 1910 (blue), 859 (teal), and 803 (purple). I am loving this wool. It is soft and buttery and it seems that 2.75mm needles are the perfect size because, in my hands anyway, the stitches feel almost like they’re forming themselves. I short, I am loving this project.

Anyway, because the weather was so gorgeous, and because I got the entire weekend off, L and I spent pretty much the entire weekend running all over the place and being outdoors. Except, the running (at least on Saturday) was actually bicycling. Oh heaven.

Old and hard vs. new cushy and new.

This is my new old bike, and on Saturday morning L put a new cork wrap on my handlebars and then we took off all over the city. In no particular order: We went to Lettuce Knit so I could exchange some wool, to the Ex to throw a frisbee, we watched planes land on the Island, we went for fancy sandwiches, we went to one of our new favourite coffee shops – in short, we did all kinds of things we’d been talking about doing for ages and finally did because it was such a gorgeous day.

I took many pictures of this plane coming in to land, but this one looks the most like an action shot. (It was much sunnier that day than this photo would have you believe.)

In theory, this meant I didn’t have much time for knitting, but in practice, it all worked out fine (small projects, you see, are very portable). So, on Friday before work I spend three and a half hours knitting on a café patio with Zoe. Then, to cap on Saturday’s bicycling, Wendy and I met up for beer and sat knitting quite happily in a pub – much to the apparent amusement/confusion of a woman sitting at the bar, who turned around to stare at us for a quite some time. It was St. Patrick’s Day, though, so maybe she as just confused as to why neither of us were knitting in green. Who knows.

Cafe knitting, crappy cellphone photo.

What I do know though, is that if this weather keeps up, knitting through the summer will be an absolute pleasure because it will involve bicycling, coffee, beer, and lots of time out of doors with people I love.

Despite the busy weekend I still managed to get the heel flap finished (and now turned).

Categories: Knitting, Out and about Tags: bicycles, Cascade 220 Superwash Sport, photos, socks, Toronto, weather