New Year, New Blogs

For many, the start of the new year is a time to assess our lives and to make changes or try something new. For Heather and I, our thoughts seem to turn to blogging. On January 2, 2007 we made our inaugural post on this blog. And now, two years later, we are trying something new. We've decided to retire the joint blog and try doing our own. Friends Knit Together will always be here should we choose to return to it. I'd like to stress that this is in no way a reflection of our friendship; if anything we are closer than ever now that we live a few blocks apart. The joint blog was great, the perfect way to enter the blogging world. Now we feel the need to branch out on our own and to move beyond talking solely about knitting. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I hope that all our loyal readers (is anyone still out there?) will follow us to our new homes.

Adriana will now be blogging at Miss Scarlet Knits: http://missscarletknits.blogspot.com/
Heather will be at Socks for Phlox: http://socksforphlox.blogspot.com/

ETA: Heather just returned from a trip to Nicaragua and will need a little time to get her blog all sorted out. Hopefully she'll post pictures for us soon!

Moving Part 2 (Adriana)

Oops, sorry for the delay in posting the second part of the move. First Thanksgiving happened and then I got distracted by having a social life. It's fun :D

Here are some pictures of the new apartment (Can I please say how hard it is to take pictures of rooms? The place is much nicer in person)

The kitchen with our old fridge


Our new kitchen table from Ikea (I love Ikea!!)


Pete's studio which has been unpacked since this picture was taken (but I was too lazy to take a new one :P)


The bedroom (which has a cool fire escape similar to the one in Rent but too small for singing and throwing down flaming pieces of paper)


The bathroom (oh, the excitement!)


My favourite room, the living room (now with lots of seating for movie nights!)


More of the living room including my favourite thing about the new place, the PVR! I love being able to watch my shows whenever and I totally abuse it to avoid seeing commercials :P


Cleo's favourite spot by the big window. The apartment is east-facing so Cleo loves to sunbathe :)

I also have a wee bit more knitting to show off. Right before I moved Kristy asked me to make a hat for her very pregnant cousin. After flipped through Itty Bitty Hats (courtesy of Bertha), we selected the Upside-Down Daisy Hat.

So cute!! Pardon the misshapeness, it was stuffed with plastic bags and will look much better on a baby.


I just love the top. I will definitely be making more of these hats in the future.

That's it for now! I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Moving Part 1 (Adriana)

And I'm back. Sorry for the long hiatus. Apparently I can't pack, move, unpack, job hunt, maintain my sanity, and blog at the same time. We are now mostly settled into our new home in Toronto and so far things are great. The apartment is lovely (pictures to come later) and I am loving our location. We live in a little village smack in the middle of the big city. Everything is a little bit more expensive, of course, but oh so convenient. Plus we're 5 minutes from the subway and from Heather, and Gen is just a short subway ride away. It's so terrific to move into a new city and already have a close circle of friends.

I had forgotten how much of a pain it is to move. The last two weeks before we left the apartment was a mess of boxes.

This is our dining room before the hardcore packing began. Please note Cleo sleeping on something on the floor.

Moving also means lots of getting rid of stuff. We try to recycle whenever possible so we were thrilled to discover that our city had an e-waste/Goodwill depot.

Here is some of our stuff for the depot. Sadly, there ended up being even more.

Being good tenants (with a very furry cat) we decided to steam clean our carpets. It wasn't that hard to do but did involve rearranging the furniture (N.B. if at all possible, wait until the furniture is gone before cleaning the carpets).

Cleo seemed to like the new position of the couch.

Despite all the craziness I still managed to take in a wedding show with my official Wedding Fairy, Kristy

Here we are surrounded by wedding dresses

I also managed to do some knitting:

I made a teapot cozy for the Canadian Cancer Society before I finished my internship there.

I also put the buttons on the green BSJ for Emma

I love those little frogs


In addition I dyed some yarn for Phoe. She was missing North American autumn colours and was feeling down in general so I decided to send her some autumn leaves inspired yarn.


I think I'd better stop here. Next time, more knitting and pictures of the new apartment!

Worth the Wait (Adriana)

As I sit here writing this it is currently 4:43pm, 17 minutes before the end of my internship. This has been possibly the best experience of my life. After years of schooling and two lackluster internships, I finally feel prepared to step into the workforce. And that's a good thing too because I've sent out dozens of resumes and I have an interview next week. Here I have felt capable and competent, and I have been appreciated by everyone in the office. It's such an amazing feeling, one that I will miss... at least until I get a fabulous new job where I will feel just as capable and where I will also be appreciated (fingers crossed).

It's now 4:47pm and I have just enough time to finally blog about an amazing birthday package I got a few weeks ago (bad blogger!!).

The lovely Bertha sent me a belated birthday present but it was totally worth the wait. I picked it up at the post office and immediately opened the outer packaging right in the middle of the mall. Unfortunately Bertha thwarted my efforts by individually wrapping every gift.

Look at them, so tantalizing and mysterious

I was a good girl and waited until I got home to open them (bear in mind that I was walking home and opening them right away would have made transporting them more challenging).

Oh the fabulousness!! (Yes, I have had a large amount of sugar today, why do you ask?)

At the top is Fleece Artist Nova Sock which is new to me, and in gorgeous colours that I've always loved together (dark purple and green). On the right is pink cashmere (*swoon*) from Posh Knits. 400m of fingering-weight goodness. What am I going to make with it?!?!
Bertha knew I had my eye on Itty Bitty Knits and I am thrilled to have my own copy. I'm going to break it out this weekend to look at with a friend whose cousin in pregnant.
If that wasn't enough, Bertha also sent along the most heavenly chocolate. It's milk chocolate and almonds, my favourite, so I wasn't able to resist. Folks, this chocolate has ruined me for cheap chocolate bars. There's just no comparison.

Bertha, thank you so much for this incredible birthday present. I love everything you sent me so very very much. You're a seriously awesome friend and I deeply regret that we live too far apart to hang out in real life.

Well, it's now 4:56pm. Time to run the spellchecker and then get my things together. I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm going to a bridal show!!

A Little Something Green (Adriana)

With so many great patterns out there I rarely feel the urge to knit something twice. I think it takes a special pattern to make me need to do it again. So far I've only made Odessa (Rav link) and the Fake Isle Hat twice. However, I have now made three Baby Surprise Jackets. I don't know what is it about this pattern. It might be that it uses sock yarn, of which I have tons lying around, or it might be the easy-to-follow pattern. I think it's mostly just how much fun it is to take a blob like this:



And turn it into this:


So cute! I think it needs little froggy buttons to finish it off.

Unlike the other BSJs I've made, this one actually had a recipient in mind. My dear friend Emma, for whom I have knit several items, is going to be an auntie in the near future. The nephew of a funky lady like Emma definitely deserves an unusual sweater and I think this fits the bill. Em, I hope you approve :)

In other news, things continue to come together for our big move. Now that we've got the apartment, we've been looking into movers and will probably book them early next week. Pete's been given the task of finding tv, internet and phone provider(s) (any recommendations for the Toronto area would be appreciated), and Cleo, well, she's been helping out in her own special way.


Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Stash Additions (Adriana)

I totally didn't mean to go this long without blogging but life just never slows down. Once the Fringe was over we immediately had to turn our attention to finding an apartment in Toronto. I am pleased to announce that despite all the agencies that never called us back and all the apartments which were rented out right before we arrived, we managed to find a lovely place to live. It's in a beautiful neighbourhood, minutes from the subway and from Heather! Now I cannot wait until October 1st when it is mine!

Despite the lack of knitting time recently there has been some additions to my stash, almost all the result of a swap.


Squishy Cashmerino in Plum from a swap with Heather


Jitterbug in Alizarine from a swap with Phoe


Jitterbug in Lagoon also from Phoe which I immediately started to make into another BSJ, this one with an actual recipient in mind!


Jojoland Rhythm from a swap with WillWorkForYarn on Ravelry.
I've never used this yarn before so I'm definitely excited to see how it knits up


My first Smooshy...
Phoe had bought this for herself but didn't like the colours (Into the Mystic) so she was persuaded to sell it to me. Can you believe that I have never played with Smooshy before?!? I was definitely due. I'm thinking about making Gigi with it.


Now I just need to find more knitting time. Luckily, we're going to visit Pete's parents this weekend which translates into 6 hours of knitting time!

Big Purple Blob (Adriana)

For my birthday, Jane gave me some gorgeous Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the purple and blues colourway. I loved it so much I didn't even take a picture of the yarn, I just wound it up and cast on. I had sworn off triangular shawls last year but Phoe did such a great job with her Shetland Triangle that I was inspired to make one of my own.

There is what it looks like right now:

The camera was having a lot of trouble with the colour. It's a lot more purple, and a lot less blue than it looks like here.

I've done 11 repeats so far, instead of the 8 in the pattern, because I wanted a bigger shawl (also I had lots of yarn). Now I think I'll do one more rep and then start the edging. The question is, do I continue to use the same yarn for the edging or do I use a darker purple?

Here is a close up though given how off the colours are, I think it might defeat the purpose.
Normally I'd just carry on with the same yarn but recently Carrieoke make a purple Shetland Triangle with a darker border that looks amazing! Mine would be less of a contrast but I think it might make the colours pop a little more.
Thoughts?

Also, I am destashing some Koigu Kersti if anyone is interested. (This destashing thing is addictive!)