A Milestone

Forty Years

We marked the occasion by driving to Lunenburg to have dinner at Trattoria Della Nonna.

Next to the restaurant is Cilantro, a kitchen store. Both colorful buildings have been renovated in keeping with the character of this seaside Unesco World Heritage town.

On the way to Lunenburg, we stopped at the Have A Yarn store in Mahone Bay. It is such a lovely shop filled with simply beautiful yarns. Knitters here in Nova Scotia are so very lucky. Our yarn stores have just about everything -  from the most practical fibers to the most luxurious - and everything else required to finish a project.

Hannah had a basket of six colorways of the new Mulberry Silk from Tanis Fiber Arts. It was hard to settle on one but I  finally chose the amber- a rich color with a beautiful silk sheen. It is going to make the most gorgeous shawl.

Sharing The Habitat

Every morning now, we hear a sound on the roof somewhat  akin to a road drill used in street construction and  repairs. The noise is unbelievably loud and persists until one of us runs outside, clapping, and calling up to the culprit to fly away. Some people have to put the run to cats in their garden. Or shoo dogs from their front lawn. We  have to chase this master driller off the roof before he does any damage! He usually flies just far enough away to make getting a good photo difficult.

If you go to this whatbird.com website and click on the Audio button for the Northern Flicker, you will hear what we hear as the he heads, under protest, to a nearby tree top.

For A Sweet French Baby

Pattern: Garter Yoke Cardi

Designer: Jennifer Hoel

Yarn: Sirdar Snuggly babybamboo

Color: 142

I was yarn shopping on Saturday (LK Yarns in the Halifax Hydrostone and Gaspereau Valley Fibres in the Annapolis Valley). I wanted to get a bright stripey yarn for the yoke of this sweater and a coordinating solid for the remainder of the garment because Maman had requested something along those lines but I couldn't find just the right thing locally in a machine washable combo. I will troll through the Internet and see what I can come up with but, in the meantime, I thought I would like to give this Snuggly bamboo a try. It is very soft and has a sheen that is reminiscent of silk. I've read mixed reviews so we'll see how it performs over time. This will be our own little family research project.

Oh, Robin

Oh, Robin, don't despair. Take heart and forget any thoughts you entertained at daybreak of flying to New York or New Hamsphire. It has been the warmest spring I can remember in many years of gardening. This is just a one day blip in weeks of unusual warmth.

Tulips

White tulips are one of my favorite flowers. They exude a sense of simple elegance and serenity.

Shur'tugal Socks - Done

A knitting sage once said that the best part of finishing a project is that you get to cast on another!

Welcome Home

The robins have been around for a couple of weeks now. They love it here. They are building nests in the tree tops, chirping and trilling from dawn to dusk, hopping tirelessly over the upper lawn in search of baby food, and splashing in the birdbaths with great gusto. It's great to have them back.

The Road So Often Leads Back To Ireland

Pattern of the Week: Shur'tugal Socks

Designer:  Alice Yu

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label Fingering Weight

Color: Sand

Book of the Week:

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

I am drawn to those Irish writers who weave words together so masterfully that the reader is transported back to time and place and, at the end of story, is drained with the experience. This is a tale of chance events, mistakes, and bitter consequences. It focuses on a  painfully solitary life devoted to quietly achieving some measure of redemption. It is heartbreaking, and hauntingly, beautifully written.

Good Friday Socks Complete

Time to move on to other things.

Happy Easter Everyone

Filmed on location in the house by the edge of the woods.

Good Friday Socks

Pattern: BFF Socks

Designer: Cookie A.

Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock

Color: Delft

This was one of the first sock yarns I ordered online when I went back to knitting. For some unfathomable reason, I thought it would be a little more blue and a little less white. Though I love Lisa Souza's yarns, I set it aside because I thought white socks a tad impractical. Now, since this is the year of clearing out the yarn drawer, I settled on the BFF pattern. I think they are just a teeny tad suggestive of Tyrolean socks and really rather pretty.

I highly recommend Lisa Souza's sock yarn. The skeins are a generous 450 yards (411 meters). The yarn feels good in the hand, gives great stitch definition, and Lisa is a darling to deal with - both in my experience and in what I have read online.