The Knitting Bug

On our recent trip to Massachusetts my seven year old niece asked me to teach her to knit. So out came the needles and yarn and there we were working on a garter stitch scarf for her doll. We cast on seven stitches and between my niece, her mom and myself we finished the scarf in no time.

And here is the finished scarf.

She was a very fast learner and I am sure if we lived closer she would be making her own scarf in no time!

I was chatting with John Adams at the store the other day and he asked me if I had ever heard of hockey star Jacques Plante. Since I’m not a big hockey fan I had to say no. That’s when he told me that Plante was a famous hockey player who was responsible for goalies wearing masks and - for knitting. I read an article about Jacques Plant and it said, among other things, that ” he stayed by himself in his hotel room, knitting his own undershirts and toques. . .”

After reading about Plante I decided to do a google search and see what other famous men knit. I had heard about  Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Gladiator) but was surprised to read about Lawrence Fishburne  (The Matrix and CSI). There are also rumors about Brad Pitt knitting - who would have guessed that one ?

So, if you are out there and reading this and know of more men celebrities who knit, leave me a comment and I’ll add them to my (short) list!

On October 23-25 I joined about 100 other women from our church for a spiritual retreat about 2 hours north of Ottawa. It was a lovely time away with great speakers and several workshops. There was also lots of free time which made it very relaxing.  Here is a picture of me and Heather (my roommate) attending a session. We made use of every knitting opportunity.

And these next two pictures are of the knitting workshop. It was a full workshop with a mix of knitting experienced ladies. The hour flew by very quickly and it was very rewarding to see the ladies catching on. We learned how to cast on and off and also the knit stitch. They all took their kits home with them and hopefully they are working on their dish clothes.

Our move to Ottawa didn’t slow down my knitting - just my blogging about my knitting. Anyway, I feel like I’m getting back in the saddle again. This coming weekend I will have the opportunity to teach a one-hour beginners knitting workshop at the Ladies Retreat of our church. I’m really excited about sharing my love for knitting. I am putting together 10 kits which will include a pair of size 4mm needles, a ball of cotton yarn, a row counter and some handouts. My budget is $5.00/kit! I have been using my Michaels coupons to get the needles as they are the most expensive item. A local yarn store, Yarn Forward, on Bank Street downtown has given me some great bright red bags that I will use for the kits. When I get them all together I will take a picture.

And if that’s not enough, I started a part time job at Salem Storehouse in September and have been given the green light to start a weekly knitting meeting. So on Monday morning, November 2, the SALEM PURLS will formerly meet for the very first time. I will keep you posted on how things progress.  I guess that means I will be revving up my blog again. It’s hard to keep two blogs going as well as Ravelry - I’ll do my best to keep on top of things.

I just stumbled across this YouTube. I hope it’s supposed to be funny!

I just love self striping yarn and quick knits. These toques were both made in a weekend of mindless knitting in front of the TV and while visiting with our kids. Graham and Ethan are way too cute in their matching jersey’s and new toques. It really makes knitting a wonderful hobby when the results are this cute! This is a freebie pattern from the internet and can be found HERE.

2008 was crazy for us. We moved twice in 12 months. Once from a house to a condo in the same city and then back to a house in another city. The stress was crazy and knitting didn’t make the list of things to do. However, looking at these pictures of some of my favorite little people - I’ve got the “bug” again. All I want to do is KNIT.  The temperatures outside are freezing so knitting seems like the most logical thing for me to do! My New Year’s goals are to knit knit knit. And I want to knit fun things. And I want to use up my STASH ! ! ! So hopefully next year this time I will actually have to go buy some yarn. Wish me luck . . . The other thing I want to do this year is to keep this site up-to-date. I played with Ravelry for a while and I really do like it.  I hate to shut this site down though and keeping it going along with Ladyblog  is really time consuming. So do check on me from time to time to hold me accountable. Until then . . . happy knitting.

We’ve had some great progress in our knitting groups. On Thursday mornings we have an adults group from 11-12. Nicki completed this cute hat for Chloe - working on it in both groups.

Good job, Nicki - love the curls. This is a great pattern that we’ve used over and over for our homeless knitting. It’s a freebie from the Free Pattern duJour at Morehouse.

Our after school knitting group continues to amaze me. Girls from grade 1 - grade 6 come weekly. Some moms come too and that’s great. On February 26 we had a knitting workshop at the church. Farida from the LYS was here helping. Clicking here will bring up a slide show of our night. This was our official kick-off for our Christmas charity knitting. It’s time to update my graph on the side bar. The knitters in the slide show are from both groups plus my amazing Ladies Group that meets on Tuesday nights.

It seems like forever since I have last updated this site. But - the good news is that I have been knitting! I have a wish list a mile long and am slowly getting back to my old knitting self. Last night the Ladies Group I am involved with had a knitting workshop. Farida from the Knitting Basket at the Mall close by came and met with about 15 of us and showed us lots of new ways to do things. It was fun! Now all I want to do is knit . . .

Anyway, here are some pics of little friends wearing things I made for them.

These New England Cuties are my nephew and nieces.