sunday afternoon with montreal knits

what a turn out! incredible... almost overwhelming. i met many new and old members of the group and had a hard time actually working on my project (this is always the case). i did manage to start the thumbs of ben's mittens, and finished one at home later in the evening.
kiyoko from ami ami showed up with her wonderful wares and lovely japanese knitting magazines. i indulged (i neeeeeeed to stop) in some faith for veronik's short row hat and some beautiful ahs slub kasuri for a little shawl when i get the chance.
word at the meeting was that paisley's was expanding. hurrah!!! it would be wonderful for knitting in montreal to become more accessible and comfortable. i can't wait. this also puts no dampers on my yarn store ambitions. i don't want to walk blindly into such a retail operation, believe me, so more research will be done and compiled for the plan. look for a poll coming soon...

last friday ben was home sick. he ended up feeling better in the late afternoon, so we decided that we should go recuperate our missing bed piece. getting there was a blast (not- i got motion sick on the second of three legs :| ). we had a totally new ikea experience though. once inside it was calm and collected and made more sense. there were so few people in it i could see from display to display and had no problems navigating myself (and my stuff) between mid-aisle sales bins, etc. even the cafeteria had no line. it was: relaxing... we got our post and some curtain rods and walk-bus-metro-metro-walked home. definitely not as comfortable and efficient as the cab, but cheap. and put our bed together... which is nice, but hard. i'm not used to it. our foam matress has sides to keep it in instead of squishing under pressure... this may call for some feathers!

ikea in a get-away car!

we just returned from ikea. it was the usual frustration and over stimulation... contemplating on the worth and benefit of replications. we had decided to get a simple bed frame, something to elevate our plain slats off the floor. we picked a very popular, very ikea identifiable bed with a good price tag, picked up a huge mirror (we've been living with only a lil' mirror above our sink for 2 years now), some new pillows and curtains... we made it through the check out lines and decided that since it was atrociously cold, we would try cabbing ourselves and our purchases back home instead of waiting in the delivery line and waiting half an hour by the side of a freeway for the bus. much more comfortable the cab would be. ben had doubts about fitting our long purchases into a van cab, but it worked out marvellously and we made it home with our stuff in less than delivery costs (and without waiting all day for them to come). one thing though: one missing piece. not just a missing spatula or curtain rod finial, but the middle support beam for the bed. DOH! so, this 30 dollar piece is probably freezing outside waiting for someone to bring it back into the warehouse. this means checking in tomorrow to see if they found it, taking the stupid, uncomfortable and agravatingly slow trek back out there tomorrow or the next day and either picking up the lost one or purchasing another 30 dollar bar and lugging the brat home in the miserable weather. i am not looking forward to this. not one bit. it was almost the smoothest return from ikealand ever. what a botch we pulled this time.

in the wonderful world of knitting, i've finished mona's socks from interweave knits winter 2005, gotten about halfway through a kiri shawl for a friend and started some mittens for ben.

i placed some yarn orders shortly after the holidays and both came the same day. i went a little crazy with the knit picks (not a huge fan, but my wallet is), and ordered some lace weight from ami ami. the lace yarn is 1300 m per 100 g, and is a little difficult for this novice lace knitter. i'm knitting the frost flowers and leaves shawl from gol. it's going to be a beauty! pictures to come soon!